 It was recently reported in an online health journal that two American cardiac specialists discovered a method of saving oneself from a heart attack when one is alone.
An in-depth study was reportedly conducted and the two specialists then released an article on their discovery and had it incorporated into the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) courses.
The method, informally called Cough CPR, has been tried, tested and certified by experts in the American Heart Association.
Given a hypothetical situation,
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here is how one can help oneself when he or she experiences a heart attack when alone:
Suppose you are driving home alone. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest to your home. Unfortunately, you do not know if you will be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR but the course did not tell you what to do if it happened to yourself. What can you do?
Without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.
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However, victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about very two seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.
This reportedly works because deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keeps the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can resuscitate themselves or buy themselves enough time to get to a nearby hospital.
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