alt Hacker NewsMy father didn't die of a heart attack, he died of an aneurysm. However, he had a massive "widow maker" heart attack and had to be revived from arrest in the ER, more than once.
He had a heart beat, unconscious, for a few days, before the blood thinners caused the aneurysm, I'm told.
So, is this a heart attack? Is this "less deadly?" No, it's a proximal classification. Maybe their cardiac care center has a metric to hit.
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> heart attack and had to be revived from arrest
Worth pointing out that heart attacks and cardiac arrest are not the same. A heart attack (myocardial infarction) is insufficient supply of blood to the heart, which causes damage. Cardiac arrest is when the heart stops completely (and is much more serious).
Heart attacks can cause cardiac arrest (especially if not treated), but the most common outcome is not immediate death. With proper treatment maybe 95% of MCI patients will survive. The prognosis for cardiac arrest is much worse - ~90% of patients experiencing a cardiac arrest will not survive, even if temporarily revived.
Many heart attacks occur because people don't get enough exercise and overeat. This is often the result of clinical depression. Is the killer depression or is it heart disease?
Same with the hyperlipidemia. It leads to eventual plaques in the arteries, which leads to heart attacks. But that's a genetic abnormality in the liver. The liver is pulling the trigger, the heart is taking the bullet.
Anecdotally I worked in the emergency department and ICU for 2.5 years as a scribe and translator in undergrad (ending about 7 years ago) and never saw a single person successfully revived. In the sense that everybody who ever got revived to the point that your dad did, in my experience, died.