Difference between Cardiac Arrest and Heart Attack

Often, when I talk to people, I refer to what happened to me in 2007 as being a heart attack, it's a lot easier to say this. In fact I had a cardiac arrest which resulted in recurrent ventricular fibrillation requiring 29 electrical cardioversions (electrical shocks with paddles) and resuscitation - see, a lot easier to say I had a heart attack, most people understand that!

Courtesy of British Heart Foundation

And from my experience, people are not interested in details like - I had 100% blockage of the RCA (that was stented on the night of the event), 80% blockage of the left main stem and 40% blockages of the LAD for which I had a triple bypass five days later. Way too much info for most people, a lot easier to tell them you had a heart attack, they operated and they fixed you! :-)

Check out British Heart Foundation at: https://www.bhf.org.uk/