I received this message from many of you on: "How to Survive a Heart Attack When Alone" recommending - "if

everyone who gets this sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life." This chain e-mail recommends a procedure to survive a heart attack in which the victim is advised to repeatedly cough at regular intervals until help arrives. It claims 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)." Wow....!!! "Save at least one life!" Who wouldn't want to do that? Many kind-hearted and caring brothers and sisters did just that by clicking "send" to everyone with the best of intentions of course - however, without a second thought as to the authenticity of the information after I read this message, I felt it somehow didn't seem the correct procedure to address a cardiac case. Results of a quick search basically confirmed that coughing will not fend off a heart attack! If you think what you were recommending to your family, friends and those on your mailing list that this procedure might help one of them save their life, you should also know that to recommend them to use the cough CPR at the wrong time (because they trusted your email message and misjudged the kind of cardiac event being experienced) or went about it in the wrong way, could potentially be very harmful to someone undergoing a heart attack Based on these findings, I have attached below the statements from the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross as well as three (3) search results on "How to survive a heart attack when alone" The American Heart Association states that it does not endorse "cough CPR," a coughing procedure widely publicized on the Internet." Read the rest at:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://216.185.112.5/presenter.jhtml%3Fidentifi er=4535

American Red Cross statement - "The American Red Cross does not endorse the 'How to Survive A Heart Attack When Alone' coughing technique which is being publicized on the Internet." http://www.snopes.com/toxins/coughcpr.htm#add I hope this information will help remind us to exercise discipline in what we send out in future, ins haa'Allaah. And Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta'aala knows best. Fi Amman Allaah, Your sister, Karima =============================================================== ====================

1.

How To Survive A Heart Attack Alone

http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoax5.aspHName=How+To+Survive+A+Heart+Attack+Alone

Description This email hoax started circulating on the Internet in June 1999. It claims that heart attack victims can help themselves through a procedure known as cough CPR , wherein the victim coughs repeatedly and vigorously while taking deep breaths before each cough. It was intended to serve as a useful know-how to help possible sufferers of heart attacks. However, sources of this email had really little to no idea as to how potentially harmful this information could be, especially to those who are not knowledgeable of this procedure. The email message also suggests that this cough CPR technique was recommended by Rochester General Hospital and The Mended Hearts support group. Rochester General Hospital has denied this, and The Mended Hearts, on the other hand, released a disclaimer which states, The American Heart Association does not recommend that the public use this method in a situation where there is no medical supervision. Although cough CPR is a medically approved procedure, this must only be done with professional supervision. Trend Micro advises recipients of this email to treat the information contained with much caution. The said procedure is not recommended for non-medically skilled individuals. Original hoax message HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK ALONE From F. Daniel Rochman MD If everyone who gets this sends it to 10 people, you can bet that we'll save at least one life. Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. 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 your home; unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. WHAT CAN YOU DO? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself. Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed to be in order. Without help, the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these 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, and a cough must be repeated about every 2 seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives! From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240s newsletter AND THE BEAT GOES ON .... (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart response) End of original hoax message http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoax5.aspHName=How+To+Survive+A+Heart+Attack+Alone

=============================================================== ==================== http://www.snopes.com/toxins/coughcpr.htm

2.
Claim: Doctors generally recommend that one attempt to rhythmically cough during a heart attack to increase the chance of surviving it. Status: False. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1999]

Text of the chain e-mail message

This one is serious . . . Let's say it's 4:17 p.m. and you're driving home, (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job. Not only was the work load extraordinarily heavy, you also had a disagreement with your boss, and no matter how hard you tried he just wouldn't see your side of the situation. You're really upset and the more you think about it the more up tight you become. All of a sudden 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 your home, unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course

neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself. HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed in order. Without help the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel Faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these 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 every two seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a phone and, between breaths, call for help. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives! From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240's newsletter. AND THE BEAT GOES ON... (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)

Origins:
This helpful e-mail began its life on the Internet in June 1999, and in the spring of 2004, a Powerpoint presentation of it began circulating online. Those kindhearted souls who started it on its way likely had no inkling the advice they were forwarding could potentially be harmful to someone undergoing a heart attack, but that is indeed the case. If you knew exactly what you were doing, this procedure it might help save your life. If, however, you were to attempt cough CPR at the wrong time (because you misjudged the kind of cardiac event being experienced) or went about it in the wrong way, it could make matters worse. Cough CPR is not a new procedure it has been around for years and has been used successfully in isolated emergency cases where victims realized they were on the verge of fainting and about to go into full cardiac arrest (their hearts were about to stop) and knew exactly how to cough so as to keep enough oxygen-enriched blood circulating to prevent them from losing consciousness until help could be sought, or they were under the direct care of physicians who recognized the crises as they were taking place and were on hand to instruct patients step by step through the coughing. Even were the afflicted to correctly recognize they were experiencing the sort of cardiac event where cough CPR could help, without specific training to hit the right rhythms their coughing could turn mild heart attacks into fatal ones. This is not to say cough CPR couldn't be effectively taught to patients deemed at risk of further heart attacks. According to a widely circulated news report surfacing in September 2003, a doctor in Poland has been attempting exactly that. Dr. Tadeusz

Petelenz of the Silesian Medical Academy in Katowice Province claims to have successfully instructed a number of his patients in the procedure, but it should be noted his results have not been independently confirmed. While a September 2003 Reuters article detailed the Polish doctor's championing of cough CPR, a similar Associated Press report on the same subject noted that "Experts said while the concept is provocative, it needs more study" and that "Dr. Marten Rosenquist, professor of cardiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and an expert in heart beat abnormalities, said the concept is interesting but that Petelenz showed no evidence his patients actually had arrhythmias." It is unclear from the news reports whether the Polish heart patients who supposedly experienced success with cough CPR were doing so under strict medical supervision in a hospital or were going about their private lives at the time of the cardiac events that prompted them to attempt the procedure. It is one thing for success to be achieved in a hospital setting where patients know intervention will swiftly follow if problems are encountered, and quite another when patients are in unscripted settings (at home, at work, or while driving in a car). Would such instruction hold up in field conditions, where those about to go into full cardiac arrest know there's no net under the tightrope? Yet even if cough CPR can be effectively taught by physicians, it's not going to be learned from an e-mail, at least not well enough to be safe. Even if Dr. Petelenz's findings prove out, there's a wide (and dangerous) gap between in-person one-onone training by a professional on hand to quickly correct a patient's mistakes before they become habit and generic printed instruction wholly lacking in direct feedback and guidance. Thinking one is a valid substitute for the other would be akin to believing studying a typed set of instructions is all it takes to learn how to drive a car well enough to take it down the freeway and back. The e-mailed advice about coughing during a heart attack leaves the impression the "cough CPR" technique is endorsed by Rochester General Hospital and Mended Hearts. Rochester General had nothing to do with any of this how its name came to be attached to this message is a mystery. See their denial of having endorsed this e-mail. Mended Hearts (a support group for heart disease patients and their families) is not nearly so blameless. Although the text of the e-mailed advice was published in a Mended Hearts newsletter, the organization has since disavowed it and has a page on its web site asking readers not to heed the advisory. The piece on cough CPR found its way into that publication through a blend of too much enthusiasm and a dearth of fact checking. From there, other chapters picked it up, spreading the notion to an even wider audience. Attempts now to distance the organization from it don't begin to undo the damage done by the piece having been picked up from there. Darla Bonham, Mended Heart's executive director, has since issued a statement about cough CPR: I've received email from people all across the country wanting to know if it is a valid medically approved procedure. I contacted a scientist on staff with the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiac Care division, and he was able to track a

possible source of the information. The information comes from a professional textbook on emergency cardiac care. This procedure is also known as "cough CPR" and is used in emergency situations by professional staff. The American Heart Association does not recommend that the public use this method in a situation where there is no medical supervision. Dr. Richard O. Cummins, Seattle's director of emergency cardiac care, explains that cough CPR raises the pressure in the chest just enough to maintain some circulation of oxygen-containing blood and help enough get to the brain to maintain consciousness for a prolonged period. But cough CPR should be used only by a person about to lose consciousness, an indication of cardiac arrest, he cautions. It can be dangerous for someone having a heart attack that does not result in cardiac arrest. Such a person should call for help and then sit quietly until help arrives, he says. In other words, the procedure might be the right thing to attempt or it might be the very thing that would kill the afflicted depending on which sort of cardiac crisis is being experienced. Without a doctor there to judge the situation and, if cough CPR is indicated, to supervise the rhythmic coughing, the procedure is just far too risky for a layman to attempt. Forget about coughing key to surviving a heart attack is obtaining proper medical assistance within a very limited window of opportunity. Once an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been diagnosed, speedy injection of thrombolytic agents to dissolve clots is of the utmost importance the more quickly those drugs are delivered, the better the chances of survival are. It's a race against the clock. Most patients who present with minor chest pains usually look healthy and show no signs of a heart attack. Electrocardiogram (ECG) results tell the story though, so be sure to insist upon one being performed if you've any doubts at all. Often mild heart attacks are left untreated and undetected because hospital staff mistake a heart attack for something more benign because the presenting symptoms are minor. Rather than risk killing yourself with cough CPR, those experiencing a heart attack should heed the advice of physicians the world over down a couple of Aspirin as an emergency remedy. Doctors believe that during the early stages of a heart attack, Aspirin which is known to prevent blood platelets from sticking together can prevent a clot from getting bigger. In 1991 Dr. Michael Vance, president of the American Board of Emergency Medicine, recommended that people who think they are having a heart attack should "Call 911, then take an Aspirin." Oh, and it probably makes a great deal of sense to chew the Aspirin before swallowing. The sooner it is dispersed by the stomach, the sooner it gets to where it is needed. During a heart attack, waiting for the enteric coating surrounding the pill to break down naturally could be a mistake. In 1993 The American Heart Association began recommending a 325 mg Aspirin at the onset of chest pain or other symptoms of a severe heart attack. That bit of advice is going unheeded though a follow-up report published in 1997 shows as many as 10,000 American lives a year could be saved if more people who think they're having a heart attack took an aspirin at the start of chest pains.

In terms of the drama of it, swallowing an Aspirin seems quite a come-down from bravely trying to induce a perfectly timed coughing fit. Less flamboyant is better, though; Aspirin saves lives, whereas coughing might well cost them. Barbara "from coughing to coffin?" Mikkelson

Last updated: 17 June 2004 http://www.snopes.com/toxins/coughcpr.htm =============================================================== ===================

3. http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blcpr.htm
Urban Legends and Folklore

Can 'Cough CPR' Save Your Life During a Heart Attack?

Netlore Archive: Self-CPR? According to this 1999 email rumor, you can save your own life during a heart attack ... by coughing
Description: Email rumor Status: Disputed by experts Circulating since: 1999 Analysis: See below

Email text as circulated in 1999:

This one is serious... Let's say it's 4:17 p.m. and you're driving home, (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job. Not only was the work load extraordinarily heavy, you also had a disagreement with your boss, and no matter how hard you tried he just wouldn't see your side of the situation. You're really upset and the more you think about it the more up tight you become. All of a sudden 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 you home, unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. What can you do? You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course neglected to tell you how to perform it on yourself. HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed in order.) Without help the person whose heart stops beating properly and who begins to feel Faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these 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 every two seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood

circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a phone and, between breaths, call for help. Tell as many other people as possible about this, it could save their lives! from Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240's newsletter AND THE BEAT GOES ON... (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. publication, Heart Response)

Comments: This message gives the impression that the technique described has the endorsement of Rochester General Hospital and Mended Hearts, Inc., a heart attack victims' support group. It does not. Although the text was first published in a Mended Hearts newsletter, the organization has since retracted it. Rochester General Hospital played no part in the creation or dissemination of the message, nor does it endorse its contents. According to the best information I can find, "cough CPR" (referred to some variants as "self-CPR") is a real procedure occasionally used in emergency situations under professional supervision. It is not, however, taught in standard CPR courses, nor do most medical professionals presently recommend it as a "life-saving" measure for people who experience the most common types of heart attack while alone (note: see update below). One doctor I contacted procedure. a heart specialist had never even heard of the

Other doctors say they're aware of the "cough CPR" technique but would only advise it under very specific circumstances. For example, in certain cases where a patient has abnormal heart rhythms, coughing can help normalize them, according to Dr. Stephen Bohan of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. However, most heart attacks are not of this type. Dr. Bohan says the best course of action for a typical heart attack victim is to immediately take an aspirin (which helps dissolve blood clots) and call 911. This is a case where a nugget of truth has apparently been misunderstood and misrepresented to the public, though not intentionally. A chapter of Mended Hearts published it without proper research. It was then reprinted by other chapters and eventually found its way into email form. Darla Bonham, the organization's executive director, issued a statement afterward which read, in part: I've received email from people all across the country wanting to know if it is a valid medically approved procedure. I contacted a scientist on staff with the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiac Care division, and he was able to track a possible source of the information. The information comes from a professional textbook on emergency cardiac care. This procedure is also known as "cough CPR" and is used in emergency situations by professional staff. The American Heart Association does not recommend that the public use this method in a situation where there is no medical supervision.

As with all medical rumors, the most prudent course of action is to verify the information with your own doctor or other medical professional before acting upon it or sharing it with others. 2003 update: In September 2003, four years after this email rumor began circulating, Polish physician Tadeusz Petelenz presented the results of a study which he said demonstrates that cough CPR can indeed save the lives of some heart attack victims. While not immediately embraced by all the members attending the European Society of Cardiology meeting where Petelenz spoke, the findings were characterized by some as "interesting." At least one heart specialist, Dr. Marten Rosenquist of Sweden, found fault with the study, objecting that Petelenz had presented no evidence that the subjects had actually experienced cardiac arythmias. He called for further research. Read more...