Day 2. Tuesday 29 September: Young Cardiac Arrest HAPPENS
Date: Tue, 29th Sep 2020
We often consider young people to be the healthiest segment of society. However, 12-16 young people aged 14-35 years die each week in the UK of a cardiac condition where cardiac arrest can be the first presentation of the disease! These deaths have a devastating impact on friends, family members and the community at large. We need to recognise that cardiac arrest can happen in the young, be a position to position to save those who have suffered cardiac arrest through early CPR and AED use, and provide support for survivors of cardiac arrest and their family members.
You're young, you're invincible, you're fit and you're sporty.
Sometimes you have to sit down for a short time because your heart is racing, but you think nothing of it. Recently you fainted but you're not sure it was because you hardly had any breakfast.
Then one day you wake up in the hospital, with your parents next to you. The look on their faces tells you that something terrible has happened. They tell you that you had a cardiac arrest while you were playing hockey.
And they tell you that the coach and a parent resuscitated you and gave you an electric shock with a defibrillator.
A roller-coaster of events follow: Your life has changed forever. But you are still young, you are still here, you and your family have lots of tests and you find out you will have to learn to live with the knowledge that this could happen again.
You need an operation to implant an internal defibrillator so that your life can be saved if you ever have another cardiac arrest. Your parents watch you all the time, you feel like you can't move, can't get on with your life.
But a year later you look back and your life is back on track. You are alive! And you are aware of what may happen to you, but now you feel safe because everything is being done to make sure that you are safe and your ICD is there to resuscitate you if anything happened again.
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