This is what a cardiac arrest looks like, and why you need to know

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Dr. Anezi Uzendu不应该在这里解释什么是心脏骤停. He's alive only because strangers at a gym understood – and acted.

In 2016, Uzendu, then a 25-year-old medical resident, was playing a pickup basketball game at a gym in Birmingham, 阿拉巴马州. 他不记得发生了什么，但他被告知他进了球，然后倒下了.

"First, they kind of thought I was joking,他说. "But then they realized I wasn't breathing."

He'd just become one of roughly 350,000 U.S. adults annually who have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. In most cases, the story – and the patient's life – ends there. Uzendu's did not because of what happened next.

“健身房的人意识到我心脏骤停，开始做心肺复苏术，”他说. “健身房有一个除颤器，他们把它接上，然后用它." His heart was shocked twice before emergency workers arrived.

乌赞杜说，抢救他的工作人员和急救部门付出了“英勇”的努力. Three weeks later, he was discharged. 今天, 他是一名介入性心脏病专家，在堪萨斯城的圣卢克中美洲心脏研究所完成了研究奖学金, 密苏里州.

医学专家把在医院外抢救心脏骤停患者所采取的步骤称为“生存链”.”目击者, such as those who responded to Uzendu, who can identify the problem are the first link in that chain.

“旁观者能做的最重要的事情是认识到问题，然后迅速采取行动，首先拨打911, then doing 心肺复苏" and calling for an automated external defibrillator, 或AED, 玛丽·纽曼说, 总裁兼首席执行官 Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation, which is based in Pittsburgh.

但纽曼, a researcher who developed that idea of a chain of survival, said recognition can be tricky, 因为心脏骤停在电影里看起来不一定是心脏问题, where someone might dramatically clutch their chest and swoon. 即使是美国国家橄榄球联盟球员达马尔·哈姆林在1月份的《线上电子游戏飞禽走兽》中摇摇晃晃地倒下，也不能传达出整个经历.

造成混淆的一个主要原因是，人们通常认为心脏骤停与心脏病发作是一样的. "They're two different things,纽曼说. A heart attack is often likened to a plumbing problem, where blood flow to the heart muscle is stopped. Although a heart attack can lead to cardiac arrest, cardiac arrest is an electrical issue, where the heart stops beating properly.

"When you have a heart attack, 你是醒着的, 你的心脏还在跳动, 你不需要心肺复苏术,纽曼说. "You just need to call 911 and get help. But with sudden cardiac arrest, their heart has stopped. And if no one intervenes quickly, they will die."

她纠正自己说:“当你心脏骤停时，你实际上已经死了. And the challenge is to bring the person back to life."

即使是那些知道什么是心脏骤停的人，也很难弄清楚. But for anyone who does not have medical training, Uzendu说, it comes down to two questions: "Are they responsive? And are they breathing normally?"

检查他们的反应就像轻拍他们的肩膀一样简单. 但许多旁观者，也被称为急救人员，对“痛苦的呼吸”感到困惑.乌赞杜形容那是“奇怪的、断断续续的呼吸，非常短的呼吸，非常浅的呼吸。. 有时它们是一大口，然后很长一段线上电子游戏飞禽走兽都没有."

Agonal breathing can come in a lot of variations, 他说, 但在一天结束的时候, "if you notice their breathing isn't normal or not present at all, 这应该是一个触发点，让我们认为这个人心脏骤停了."

有时, 心脏骤停也会引起抽搐，就像有人癫痫发作一样, 他说, which also can slow people from responding.

乌赞杜说，如果你看到有人晕倒，不要浪费线上电子游戏飞禽走兽去思考可能的原因. During the time that it takes someone to recognize a cardiac arrest, the patient's vital organs are being starved of blood.

"For every minute that someone doesn't receive 心肺复苏, and doesn't get an AED to shock them out of an abnormal rhythm, 存活率急剧下降,他说. 让一个旁观者来做心肺复苏术可以使病人存活的机会增加一倍或三倍.

Don't worry about needlessly performing 心肺复苏 either, 他说. "I'm more concerned about people waffling and saying, 'I don't think this is it' or 'I think this could be something else.'" If you attempt 心肺复苏 on someone who doesn't need it, 他们很快就会阻止你, 而且可能不会造成伤害, "whereas if you don't start 心肺复苏 on someone that does need it, it's almost universally fatal."

You can help even if you're not formally trained, Uzendu说, but "if you have the training, 你有技能, it's so much easier for you to go in and act,他说. Free 美国心脏协会 videos can provide the basics before you seek out hands-on training.

Cardiac arrest can strike seemingly healthy people without warning, but sometimes there are symptoms, 比如头晕或疲劳, 纽曼说.

Uzendu说 that a few weeks before his cardiac arrest, he'd passed out playing basketball but ignored it. "I just chalked it up to being dehydrated."

医生还没有确定他心脏骤停的原因，但他知道自己成功了. Lay rescuers administer 心肺复苏 in only about 40% of cases. “我们知道院外心脏骤停的存活率不到10%." He estimates his own odds of a full recovery were even lower.

"I thank God I survived," Uzendu说. 如果没有那些意识到正在发生的事情并采取行动的人，他不可能做到这一点. 他说，这“不应该是我从中受益，而其他人却没有的事情”."

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