In the right place at the right time

For Tommy Smith of Boone, the weekend of July 28 was set to be a busy one. Mowing his yard on that hot afternoon was just the start of it. Darius Rucker was going to be in concert at App State and Tommy had just started working with App Elite, which provides crowd control for special events. The concert would be his first event. And on Sunday, his three-piece band, Wilcox Smith Lane, was scheduled to perform. He was excited for the weekend ahead.

Life had other plans for Tommy, though. After his yard work was complete, he walked back to his house, and he felt discomfort in his left shoulder. At first, he thought he pulled a muscle but then he felt it in the other shoulder. Because it was 84 degrees outside, which is hot for the High Country, Tommy thought maybe he was suffering from heat exhaustion or dehydration. After a cool shower, he was still sweaty and clammy. Naturally, he turned to Google for a self-diagnosis. Just as a passing thought he looked up the symptoms for a heart attack. He was experiencing some heart attack symptoms listed but not many. His only point of reference for a heart attack was Fred Sanford from Sanford and Son – “Elizabeth, I’m coming to join you, honey.”

He called his wife Tracy but couldn’t get through, so he left a message and texted. She was with their daughters at Valle Crucis Park, so her cell service was spotty. He decided to lie down and watch a Braves baseball game. But he just couldn’t get comfortable. By this point, his upper arms started hurting and that was when he knew it was more than dehydration. He tried his wife again, and still no answer. He thought about calling 911 but didn’t want to take an ambulance to the Emergency Department to be told he had heartburn. When his wife was able to call him back, he told her he thought he might be having a heart attack. Tracy called their neighbor who drove Tommy to the ER at Watauga Medical Center.

“When I got there, I walked up to the front desk and said, ‘I believe I’m having a heart attack,’ and boom in a matter of seconds I had two nurses one on each arm guiding me back to a back room. I looked around and there was a myriad of people running around. I overheard one of the nurses telling my wife, ‘ma’am, your husband is currently having a massive heart attack.’ As I was lying there, I was thinking this is really strange, and not what I had planned for this weekend.”

Tommy recalls in a matter of 30-45 minutes the cardiologist was performing an angioplasty to place a stent in his right coronary artery, which was 100% blocked.

After surgery, he was admitted to ICU, and it just so happened his nurse was a neighbor, Eric Fidler. “He was great. Every 15 minutes like it or not he was checking on me. The hospitalists were fabulous,” Tommy said.

“The cardiologist came back in at least two other times to check on me and give me an update. He spoke to me like I wasn’t an idiot but gave me enough information that I knew what was going on in my body,” Tommy said.

He says his healthcare team kept using the word “STEMI,” which he later found out is a 100% blockage in a coronary artery. A STEMI (ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction) is the most severe type of heart attack. A heart attack or myocardial infarction happens when an artery supplying blood to the heart suddenly becomes partially or completely blocked by a blood clot.1

Tommy’s heart attack occurred on Friday afternoon and by Sunday he was home. He now has a cardiologist, Dr. Keith Atkinson, at the Heart and Vascular Center. But because Tommy was already active and health conscious, his heart attack didn’t really require a lifestyle change. However, according to the Centers for Disease Control, about half of all Americans (47%) have at least one of three key risk factors for heart disease: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking. Other factors include age, family history, diabetes, obesity, diet, exercise, and alcohol consumption.3 Some of these factors can be controlled but others can’t like family history and age.

And although his experience did not include some of the traditional symptoms of a heart attack like chest pain, he now knows to look for other signs.

“I didn’t have that pain in my heart or numbness in my left arm. It was a little bit different. But at least I knew enough to get to the Emergency Department,” he says.

Although each experience may vary, typical signs of a heart attack encompass chest pain or discomfort, weakness, dizziness, or the tendency to faint, pain or discomfort in the jaw, neck, or back, discomfort in either or both arms or shoulders and difficulty in breathing.4

For women, symptoms may also include uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness or pain the center of the chest; cold sweat and nausea, vomiting and back or jaw pain.5

While it’s impossible for someone to predict when a heart attack might occur, it’s crucial for everyone to be aware of the risk factors and symptoms. This knowledge can be invaluable as 805,000 people experience a heart attack in the United States each year. That equals one every 40 seconds.2

Though Tommy’s weekend didn’t go according to his original plan, if he had to have a heart attack, he was in the right place at the right time. Just a few weeks earlier, his family was on an Alaskan cruise.

Recognizing that his experience could have taken a different turn, he gratefully remarked, “I’m glad I was in Boone, at home and near Watauga Medical Center.”

If you are experiencing a heart attack, call 911

Call 911 if you are experiencing heart attack symptoms. The sooner you get to an emergency room, the sooner you can get treatment to reduce the amount of damage to the heart muscle. At the hospital, healthcare professionals can run tests to find out if a heart attack is happening and decide the best treatment. In some cases, a heart attack requires cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or an electrical shock (defibrillation) to the heart to get the heart pumping again. Bystanders trained to use CPR or a defibrillator may be able to help until emergency medical personnel arrive.

Remember, the chances of surviving a heart attack are better the sooner emergency treatment begins. 4

About the Heart and Vascular Services at Watauga Medical Center

UNC Health Appalachian continues to raise the bar for heart and vascular (cardiac) care in the High Country. Our comprehensive program features an array of services including The Heart & Vascular Center, a state-of-the-art interventional and cardiac catheterization lab, cardiac diagnostic testing, and cardiac rehabilitation programs. Thanks to our expert team of cardiology providers, our cutting-edge technology, and procedural capability, the majority of our patients may stay close to home for their heart and vascular (cardiac) health needs.

Watauga Medical Center (WMC) has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® and achieved advanced certification for Chest Pain. In addition, the WMC and Cannon Memorial Hospital Echocardiography Labs are certified by the Intersocietal Accreditation Commission in Echocardiography (ICAEL) for heart (cardiac) imaging excellence.

WMC is also designated a Primary Stroke Center by The Joint Commission.

1 –https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/cardiovascular/stemi/index.html#:~:text=A%20STEMI%20(ST%2DSegm ent%20Elevation,blocked%20by%20a%20blood%20clot.
2-
https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20someone,heart%20 attack%20every%2040%20seconds.&text=Every%20year%2C%20about%20805%2C000%20people,States%20hav e%20a%20heart%20attack.&text=Of%20these%2C,are%20a%20first%20heart%20attack
3-
https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/risk_factors.htm
4-
https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/heart_attack.htm