[ExI] heart attack while alone

[BillK]

On Mon, 31 Dec 2018 at 16:38, spike wrote:
>
> Your best safety device is a phone.
> If you are driving, stop right in the middle of the lane.
>

That's right, Spike. Phone immediately for emergency assistance. You
may only have seconds available before you lose consciousness.
The cough-CPR email hoax has been going round since about 1999 and may kill you.
Always check these 'advice' emails with Snopes or Hoax-slayer first.

See:
<https://www.hoax-slayer.net/survive-heart-attack-alone-hoax/>

Quote:
The message outlines a technique for surviving a heart attack while
alone that involves vigorous coughing. According to the email, a
cardiologist has advised forwarding the message to others in order to
save lives. However, the alleged cardiologist is not named, nor is
there any reference to a reputable medical institution. In my opinion,
any life-critical “medical advice” that is not supported by credible
reference material should be used with extreme caution.

It should be noted that the cough procedure outlined in the email is
not, in itself, a hoax and has been researched and tested by medical
experts. In fact, so called “Cough CPR” might be beneficial under
certain controlled circumstances. However, this does not mean that the
advice in the email message is valid and useful. The most important
factor to consider is that, according to medical experts, cough CPR
should only be performed under strict professional supervision.

Heart patient support organization Mended Hearts has also debunked the
procedure:

Despite a contagious rumor, coughing doesn’t prevent a heart attack.
An e-mail that spread around the world like a contagious disease a few
years ago claimed that anyone who feels heart attack symptoms while
alone should cough “repeatedly and very vigorously, repeating a breath
about every two seconds…until help arrives, or (a normal heartbeat
returns).”

Wrong, says the American Heart Association.
“It’s right up there with voodoo as far as I’m concerned,” says Dr.
Cary Fishbein, a cardiologist with the Dayton Heart Center.
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BillK