Written by P. Deepika, Content Writer, Healthcare Industry.

Medically reviewed by: Dr. K. Thiyagarajan, MBBS, MD – General Medicine, DM – Cardiology | Last updated: 10 November 2026

Quick answer A heart attack is a circulation (blockage) problem. An artery feeding the heart muscle is blocked, but the heart is still beating and the person is usually awake and able to talk. Cardiac arrest is an electrical problem. The heart suddenly stops beating effectively, so the person collapses, does not respond and is not breathing normally. A heart attack can trigger a cardiac arrest, but they are not the same thing, and the first aid is different. Heart attack: call 112 or 108 and keep the person calm. Cardiac arrest: call 112 or 108 and start chest compressions immediately.

Emergency right now?

Person is unresponsive and not breathing normally: call 112 or 108, put the phone on speaker, push hard and fast in the centre of the chest, and send someone to find an AED.

Person is awake with chest pain, pressure, sweating or breathlessness: call 112 or 108 immediately. Do not drive them or yourself. Keep them seated and calm.

Near Kovur, Mangadu and Porur, Kanaga Hospital offers Emergency Care and a 24-hour casualty. Call the ambulance first, then head to the nearest emergency unit.

Imagine you are at a family gathering when an uncle suddenly clutches his chest and slumps to the floor. Someone shouts, “It’s a heart attack!” Someone else says, “Start CPR!” In that moment, knowing exactly what you are looking at can change what you do next, and whether the person lives. CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is meant for someone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally. You should never perform CPR on a conscious and breathing person.

During a heart attack, the person is conscious and feels chest pain, pressure, shortness of breath and tightness. In contrast, during a cardiac arrest, the person will be unconscious, collapsed, unresponsive, and is not breathing normally (or is only gasping).

A heart attack occurs when there is blockage of blood flow to the heart muscle, while a cardiac arrest is the result of electrical system malfunctioning. Cardiac arrest is often linked to coronary artery disease, prior heart attacks, cardiomyopathy, or congenital heart diseases. The two are connected, though: a heart attack can trigger the dangerous heart rhythm that causes cardiac arrest.

Understanding these differences helps you assess the situation calmly and make life-saving decisions. The following sections break down the differences, symptoms, treatment, and prevention of heart attacks and cardiac arrests. We have also included India-specific emergency numbers and survival data so the information is useful where you live.

 

Heart Attack vs Cardiac Arrest at a Glance

Feature	Heart Attack	Cardiac Arrest
What it is	A circulation problem: a blocked artery cuts blood supply to part of the heart muscle	An electrical problem: the heart suddenly stops beating effectively
Is the heart beating?	Yes, usually	No effective heartbeat; no pulse
Is the person awake?	Usually yes	No. Collapses and is unresponsive
Breathing	Present, may be breathless	Absent, or only occasional gasps
Speed	Minutes to hours (sometimes warning signs days earlier)	Seconds
First action	Call 112 or 108, sit upright, chew aspirin only if advised	Call 112 or 108, start chest compressions, use an AED
Is CPR needed?	Only if they become unresponsive and stop breathing normally	Yes, immediately

Heart Attack: The Plumbing Problem

A heart attack, also called myocardial infarction, occurs when the blood flow to the heart muscle through the coronary arteries is reduced or completely blocked. Think of it as a blocked fuel line: the heart is still running, but the muscle it relies on starts to starve. Every minute without treatment, more heart muscle is lost, which is why cardiologists say “time is muscle.”

The Underlying Mechanism

• The coronary arteries are the blood vessels responsible for supplying oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle.
• Plaque is a mix of fat, calcium, cholesterol and cellular waste.
• Plaque builds up in the arteries and narrows them, which hinders blood flow.
• Sometimes a plaque ruptures and a blood clot forms on it.
• If there is no proper blood flow, the heart faces oxygen deprivation, and this damages the heart.
• When the clot completely blocks the artery, the part of the heart muscle it supplies begins to die. This is a heart attack.

Heart Attack Symptoms

The heart attack symptoms can vary from mild to severe based on the age, sex, medical conditions and overall health. The common symptoms are the following:

• Chest pain, pressure or tightness (often described as a heavy weight or squeezing) that lasts more than a few minutes or comes and goes
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea
• Heartburn or indigestion-like discomfort
• Lightheadedness
• Fatigue
• Discomfort in the shoulder, neck, jaw, teeth and back (and in one or both arms)
• Cold sweat

Heart attack symptoms in women, older adults and people with diabetes

Not every heart attack looks like the dramatic chest-clutching scene from films. Women are somewhat more likely than men to have symptoms other than chest pain, such as unusual tiredness, nausea, indigestion-like discomfort, or pain in the upper back or jaw. Older adults and people with diabetes may also have milder or “silent” symptoms. These are often put down to gas, a pulled muscle or stress, and care gets delayed.

If you are not sure, call anyway. It is always better to be checked and told it was a false alarm than to wait at home.

Causes of Heart Attack

Most heart attacks are caused by plaque rupture and clotting, as described above. Less common causes include:

• Coronary artery spasm: The coronary arteries tighten up, causing the reduction in blood flow.
• Spontaneous coronary artery dissection: This condition occurs when there is a tear in the artery, leading to a decrease in blood flow or a complete blockage. It is a notable cause of heart attacks in younger women.
• Coronary Embolism: It occurs when a blood clot, air bubble or other particle travels to the coronary arteries and blocks the vessel partially or completely.

Risk Factors of Heart Attack

These factors raise the chance of a heart attack:

• Smoking: Chemicals in tobacco smoke damage the lining of the blood vessels and encourage plaque build-up. This includes cigarettes, beedis and hookah.
• Stress and anxiety: Long-term stress can raise blood pressure and push people towards habits such as smoking, overeating and poor sleep, all of which strain the heart.
• Diabetes: Persistently high blood sugar damages blood vessels over time and speeds up plaque build-up. It can also dull pain, so a heart attack may feel milder than expected. Read about the early signs of diabetes and speak to an internal medicine and diabetology specialist if you are at risk.
• Obesity: Excess weight is linked to high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes. These can strain the heart and damage the arteries over time.
• Age: Risk rises with age: earlier in men, and in women after menopause.
• Gender: Men tend to have heart attacks at a younger age. In women, risk climbs after menopause, and heart attacks in women are more often missed.
• Genetics: The genetic factors increase the risks of heart attacks. A parent or sibling with early heart disease (before 55 in men, before 65 in women) raises your own risk.
• Lack of exercise: A sedentary lifestyle raises blood pressure, weight and blood sugar, which increases the risk of heart attacks.
• High blood pressure: it puts constant stress on artery walls and makes plaque more likely to form.
• High LDL (“bad”) cholesterol: the main building block of artery plaque.

A note for Indian readers: people of South Asian origin often develop heart disease several years earlier (in some studies, around a decade earlier) than people in many Western countries. If you have a family history, diabetes or high blood pressure, ask your doctor when to start regular heart check-ups rather than waiting for symptoms.

Cardiac Arrest: The Electrical Problem

Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops beating effectively due to the electrical malfunction, resulting in the failure of blood circulation throughout the body. If a heart attack is a blocked fuel line, cardiac arrest is a power cut: the heart’s wiring misfires, the pump stops, and blood stops reaching the brain and other organs.

The Underlying Mechanism

• The heart is not just a pump. It also runs on electrical signals that tell it when to contract.
• These signals can sometimes become unstable, causing a condition called arrhythmia.
• Many arrhythmias are harmless, but some are dangerous.
• The electrical malfunctions, like ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia, occur in the lower chambers (ventricles) of the heart and are very dangerous. In ventricular fibrillation the ventricles quiver instead of pumping.
• Blood stops reaching the brain, so the person loses consciousness within seconds, collapses and experiences a sudden cardiac arrest.

Cardiac Arrest Symptoms During The Event

• Sudden collapse
• Loss of consciousness
• Unresponsiveness
• No normal breathing (or only occasional gasping)
• No pulse

Cardiac Arrest Warning Signs

• Nausea
• Shortness of breath
• Heart palpitations
• Sudden weakness
• Chest discomfort
• Fainting or near-fainting, especially during exercise

Important: a significant share of people have no warning at all, and many who collapse appear healthy with no known heart disease. That is why knowing how to respond matters even more than spotting early signs.

What Causes Cardiac Arrest?

Anything that reduces oxygen levels or interferes with the heart’s electrical signal can cause cardiac arrest. The conditions that can lead to cardiac arrest include:

• Coronary artery diseases: This is the most common underlying cause in adults. Blocked arteries and scarred, oxygen-starved heart muscle can trigger dangerous rhythms.
• Heart attack: The heart attack can induce ventricular fibrillation (improper heart rhythm) leading to cardiac arrest.
• Heart valve disease: The narrowing of heart valves forces the heart to work harder, leading to stretching and thickening of heart muscle that causes irregular rhythm.
• Congenital heart defect: It is a heart condition present by birth and can potentially cause cardiac arrest.
• Cardiomyopathy: the heart muscle becomes enlarged, thickened or weak, which disturbs its electrical signals.
• Inherited rhythm disorders: conditions such as long QT syndrome and Brugada syndrome can cause dangerous rhythms even in a structurally normal heart.
• Electrolyte imbalance: very low or high potassium or magnesium (for example in kidney disease or severe dehydration) can upset the heart’s rhythm.
• Other causes include severe blood loss, infections, overdose of medications and breathing failure , as well as drowning, electric shock, severe injury and recreational drug use.

Risk Factors of Cardiac Arrest

• Family history: Genetic conditions for heart disease play a major role. AHA data show that having a parent, sibling or child who has had a cardiac arrest roughly doubles your own risk.
• Thickened heart muscle: The enlarged or thickened heart muscle can disrupt the electrical signals and trigger abnormal rhythms.
• High cholesterol: People with high cholesterol are at higher risk because of the plaque buildup in the arteries.
• Previous heart attacks and drug use can also increase the risks of cardiac arrest. Having heart failure, or having survived a cardiac arrest before, raises the risk further.

Can young and seemingly healthy people have a cardiac arrest?

Yes, although it is much less common than in older adults. In younger people the cause is often an undiagnosed condition such as cardiomyopathy or an inherited rhythm disorder, and an episode may be triggered by intense exercise. Fainting during exercise, unexplained fainting, palpitations, or a close relative who died suddenly under the age of 50 are good reasons to see a cardiologist for an ECG and an echocardiogram.

Heart Attack vs Cardiac Arrest vs Stroke vs Heart Failure

The table below clearly explains the differences between heart attack, cardiac arrest, stroke and heart failure:

Characteristic	Heart Attack	Cardiac Arrest	Stroke	Heart Failure
Definition	Blood flow to part of the heart muscle is blocked	The heart suddenly stops beating effectively due to an electrical fault	Blood flow to part of the brain is blocked, or a brain blood vessel bursts	Weak or stiff heart muscle cannot pump enough blood for the body’s needs
Symptom	Chest pain, nausea and shortness of breath	Sudden collapse and absence of breathing	Face drooping, arm weakness, slurred speech, sudden severe headache, vision loss	Fatigue, swelling of feet or legs, and breathlessness
Consciousness	Mostly awake	Unconscious	Can be conscious, confused, or unconscious	Conscious
Cause	Interruption in blood flow	Electrical malfunction	Blocked (ischaemic) or burst (haemorrhagic) blood vessel in the brain	Long-term high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, past heart attack or cardiomyopathy
Onset	Minutes to hours	Seconds	Sudden, within minutes	Gradual over weeks to years (can worsen suddenly)
Is the heart beating?	Yes	No effective beat	Yes	Yes, but weakly
Emergency action	Call 112 or 108; sit upright; aspirin only if advised	Call 112 or 108; CPR; AED	Call 112 or 108 at once; note the time symptoms began; do not give aspirin or food	Urgent medical help if sudden breathlessness; regular specialist care otherwise

Heart attack vs cardiac arrest vs stroke

A heart attack and a cardiac arrest involve the heart; a stroke involves the brain. In a heart attack the heart is damaged by a blocked artery, in a cardiac arrest the heart stops, and in a stroke the brain loses blood supply. Stroke is recognised using BE-FAST: Balance loss, Eyes (vision changes), Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, Time to call for help.

Heart attack vs cardiac arrest vs heart failure

Heart failure does not mean the heart has stopped. It means the heart is not pumping as well as it should, usually after months or years of damage. Someone with heart failure can still have a heart attack or a cardiac arrest, and a heart attack can be one of the causes of heart failure.

Heart Attack vs Cardiac Arrest Symptoms

The below are the physical symptoms to be identified for the person going through a heart attack or a cardiac arrest:

Heart Attack	Cardiac Arrest
The symptoms can occur in minutes to hours.	It happens within seconds.
The person can describe the pain and will be mostly conscious.	The person will be unconscious and will not be able to describe the pain.
Breathing is present but may be fast or laboured.	No breathing, or slow, noisy gasps that are not normal breathing.
The person would be holding their chest due to pain.	The person collapses and does not move.
The person can wake up after fainting and can breathe normally.	The person cannot wake up on their own after losing consciousness.
The skin appears pale and sweaty (clammy).	The skin may turn pale or bluish-grey and feels cold.
Chest pain: usually present, but may be mild or absent in some women, older adults and people with diabetes.	Warning signs: may or may not occur beforehand; the person cannot report symptoms during the event.
Pulse: present (may be fast or irregular).	Pulse: absent.

How Should the Patient React During A Heart Attack:

• Stop what you are doing and sit down in a comfortable position, for example leaning against a wall.
• Call 112 or 108 straight away, even if you are not sure it is a heart attack.
• Do not drive yourself, and do not walk or run to the hospital. Exertion strains the heart, and the ambulance crew can start treatment on the way.
• Ask for help: unlock the front door and ask someone nearby to stay with you.
• Loosen the tight clothing if you are wearing any.
• If a doctor has already prescribed you a nitroglycerin tablet for angina, use it exactly as instructed.
• If the emergency operator or your doctor tells you to, chew (do not swallow whole) one regular aspirin of 300 to 325 mg, or 2 to 4 low-dose tablets of 75 to 81 mg. Do not take aspirin if you are allergic to it or have a bleeding problem.

Note: If the patient is facing a cardiac arrest, then it is not possible to react, as it occurs within seconds. This is exactly why the people around them matter so much.

What Should the Bystander Do?

During a Heart Attack:

• Call the emergency services and inform them about the suspected heart attack.
• Make them sit in an upright position with the knees bent.
• Begin CPR only if the person becomes unconscious and is not breathing normally.
• Give a chewable aspirin tablet to the patient only if the emergency dispatcher advises it and there is no allergy.
• Stay with them, keep them calm and still, and watch their breathing. Unlock the door and have an AED brought close if one is available.

During a Cardiac Arrest:

• Check for breathing and response in not more than 10 seconds. Tap their shoulders and shout, “Are you okay?” Occasional gasps do not count as breathing. If they are not responding or not breathing, then you can assume it is a cardiac arrest.
• Call the emergency services immediately (or ask someone else to) and put the phone on speaker so the dispatcher can guide you.
• If possible, ask for an automated external defibrillator (AED) and start giving chest compressions immediately without hesitation.
• Perform hands-only CPR with continuous compressions (100-120 per minute) if you are not trained. Push hard in the centre of the chest, about 5 to 6 cm (2 to 2.4 inches) deep, and let the chest rise fully between pushes.
• Full CPR if trained with 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths.
• When the AED arrives, switch it on and follow its voice instructions. It checks the heart rhythm and only gives a shock if one is needed, so it is safe for untrained people to use.
• Do not stop until the ambulance team takes over, the AED tells you to pause, or the person starts moving and breathing normally.

CPR in India: the Indian Society of Anaesthesiologists’ Resuscitation Council has published a Compression-Only Life Support (COLS) guideline designed for people without formal training, and it recommends calling for help from your mobile on speaker while you begin compressions. Fear of hurting the person stops many bystanders from acting. A cracked rib can heal; a heart that has stopped cannot wait.

Diagnosis and Treatment for Heart Attack

Diagnosis

• Electrocardiogram: It records the heart’s electrical activity. Typical changes on the ECG can show that a heart attack is under way and which artery may be blocked.
• Echocardiogram: It uses sound waves to create a moving picture of the heart, showing how well it pumps and which areas are weak.
• Angiogram: It uses dye and X-rays to visualise the heart’s blood vessels and check for blockages.
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): It can be used to identify the blood flow problems in the heart, but it is not a first-line diagnosis test compared to ECG and angiogram.
• Blood tests: They measure troponin, a protein released into the blood when heart muscle is damaged. A high or rising level confirms a heart attack.
• CT scan: It can show narrowing or hardening of the blood vessels through calcium buildup.

Treatment

• Aspirin, thrombolytics and heparin: These medications reduce blood clotting or dissolve the clot.
• Beta blockers: Decrease blood pressure and slow down heartbeat.
• Angioplasty: The narrowed blood vessels that clog the blood passage are widened through a catheter, and a small mesh tube called a stent is usually left in place to keep the artery open.
• Coronary artery bypass grafting: It involves placing a blood vessel near the clogged area taken from another part of the body. The blood can flow normally through the coronary artery.
• Other medicines: antiplatelet drugs (for example clopidogrel), statins to lower cholesterol, nitrates for chest pain, and blood pressure medicines are commonly prescribed.

Doctors aim to reopen the blocked artery as fast as possible, ideally within about 90 minutes of reaching a hospital that can perform angioplasty.

Note: Taking medications without medical guidance can be life-threatening.

Diagnosis and Treatment for Cardiac Arrest

Diagnosis

• Electrocardiogram (ECG): During the arrest, the heart monitor shows the rhythm (such as ventricular fibrillation or a flat line), which decides whether a shock is given. Later ECGs help find the underlying cause.
• Blood tests: It can check the electrolyte imbalances and heart damage.
• Chest X-ray: It can determine the shape and structure of the heart to indicate the presence of heart failure if any.
• Nuclear scan: Used to analyse the blood flow changes visually through the injection of tracers which are radioactive materials.
• Cardiac catheterisation: A dye is used to visualise the blockages in the arteries.
• Echocardiogram: checks how well the heart pumps and looks for structural problems after the person is stabilised.

Treatment

• CPR: It keeps blood moving to the brain and heart by manual compressions until the heart can be restarted.
• Medications: Medicines such as adrenaline (epinephrine) and amiodarone are given during resuscitation to help restore a normal rhythm.
• AED and defibrillation: An AED (or the hospital defibrillator) delivers a controlled electric shock that stops the chaotic rhythm so the heart’s natural pacemaker can restart a normal beat. It works only for shockable rhythms such as ventricular fibrillation, not for a flat line.
• Post-cardiac arrest care: intensive care monitoring, treating the cause (for example angioplasty for a blocked artery), and careful temperature and blood pressure control to protect the brain.
• Preventing a repeat: survivors often receive an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), medicines, or treatment of the underlying condition.

Heart Attack vs Cardiac Arrest Survival Rate

Most people who reach a hospital in time survive a heart attack, roughly nine in ten, although the exact figure depends on the type and severity of the attack, the person’s age and how fast treatment starts. The survival rate for cardiac arrest outside the hospital is around 10%, and inside the hospital it is around 20% to 25%. (These figures are largely from US data.)

American Heart Association data put survival to hospital discharge after an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest at about 9%, and the AHA notes that immediate CPR can double or triple the chance of survival. The Indian COLS guideline adds that every minute of delay reduces the chance of survival by roughly 7% to 10%.

What do Indian numbers look like? They are tougher. A North Indian study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (the CARO study) found that about 8.8% of patients survived to leave hospital, and bystander CPR was given in only 1.3% of cases. The Cardiological Society of India estimates bystander CPR rates of between 1.3% and 9.8% across the country. In other words, the biggest opportunity to improve survival is simply more people learning compression-only CPR.

Heart Attack	Cardiac Arrest
Young women were found to have lower survival rates compared to men of the same age due to the delayed care and atypical symptoms.	Women have lower survival rates compared to men due to low rates of bystander CPR, atypical symptoms and less frequent initial shockable rhythms.
A blockage near the origin of a major coronary artery has a lower survival rate, as it affects a large part of the heart muscle.	Survival depends on where it happens: in-hospital arrests do better than arrests at home or in public places.
The survival rates of older people are lower compared to the young people.	The survival rates of older people are lower, and every minute without CPR or a shock lowers them further.
The higher the number of heart attacks, the lower the survival rates.	The survival rate decreases with repeated cardiac arrests.
Biggest factor: how quickly the person reaches a hospital that can open the artery.	Biggest factor: how quickly CPR starts and a defibrillator shock is delivered.
What helps most: calling an ambulance early and not driving yourself.	What helps most: immediate chest compressions and an AED.

 

Which Is More Dangerous: Heart Attack or Cardiac Arrest?

Which is worse, a heart attack or a cardiac arrest? Cardiac arrest is the more immediately life-threatening of the two, because it stops blood flow to the brain within seconds. But a heart attack is never “the milder one”: it is a serious emergency and one of the most common triggers of cardiac arrest.

Both the heart attacks and cardiac arrests are dangerous, but cardiac arrests are more lethal due to the electrical malfunction of the heart and less time to act for CPR.

• CPR cannot always ensure the survival of the patient.
• The survival rates can be higher for in-hospital treatment compared to out-hospital CPR.
• The person will go into an unconscious state in seconds, which can reduce the survival rate without proper time to reach hospital.
• In case of a heart attack, the person will be mostly conscious and have time to reach the hospital for treatment. But do not forget that it is still life-threatening.
• The heart damage in a heart attack increases with time, and hence carries a risk of cardiac arrest.

An easy way to remember it: a heart attack is a plumbing problem you can often act on in minutes to hours; cardiac arrest is an electrical failure you must act on in seconds. Both need an emergency call first.

Tips to Prevent Heart Attack and Cardiac Arrest

• Regular checkups: The regular checkups for blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol can identify the heart conditions earlier. Know your numbers: blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, blood sugar (HbA1c) and waist size.
• Medications: Taking medications regularly after doctor consultation can help you reduce the risk of heart attacks and cardiac arrests.
• Quit smoking: Smoking blocks the blood vessels and increases the risk of heart diseases.
• Maintain a healthy diet: You should have a healthy diet that includes vegetables, fruits, pulses and fibre. Limit consuming foods containing trans fats and saturated fats. Cut back on salt, sugary drinks and ultra-processed or deep-fried food.
• Alcohol: Drinking can increase the risks of heart diseases by triggering arrhythmia.
• Exercise regularly: Do activities like exercises to keep your blood pressure levels optimal, and do not overexert yourself if you already have a heart condition. A common target is at least 150 minutes of moderate activity per week. Check with your doctor or a physiotherapist before starting a new routine if you already have a heart condition.
• Cardioverter defibrillator: This is a device implanted for monitoring the heart rhythm and can produce electric shock when abnormal signals are experienced. It can also fix the slow or fast heart rhythms.
• Sleep and stress: aim for regular, adequate sleep and find a stress outlet that works for you, such as walking, yoga or time with family.
• Learn CPR: most cardiac arrests happen at home, so the life you save is most likely someone you love. Take a certified CPR or Compression-Only Life Support course.
• Know where the nearest AED is at your workplace, apartment complex or gym.
• Get family screening if a close relative died suddenly at a young age or has an inherited heart rhythm condition.

Can Cardiac Arrest Be Unexplained?

Yes, cardiac arrest can be unexplained.

When someone dies suddenly from a cardiac arrest and even a post-mortem and toxicology screen cannot determine the reason, it is called sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS). There is no blockage, damaged artery or blood vessels, and the structure of the heart appears normal. This happens due to the malfunction of the electrical signals, and these signals cannot be seen in any screening tests after death.

But the cause can sometimes be explained through genetic tests and family screening. Genetic tests can reveal conditions such as Brugada syndrome or long QT syndrome. If a close relative has died suddenly, especially under 50, or you have unexplained fainting (particularly during exercise, emotional stress or sleep), speak to a cardiologist. An ECG, echocardiogram and family screening can be lifesaving for the rest of the family.

When to Call Emergency Services?

Call your emergency number (112 or 108) if you have:

• Severe chest pain or discomfort
• Shortness of breath
• Pain spreading to arms, back, jaw, neck or stomach
• Fainting
• Cold sweat or sudden nausea along with chest discomfort
• Sudden face drooping, arm weakness or slurred speech (possible stroke)
• Anyone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally. Start CPR while you wait.

Do not wait to see if it passes. In India, 112 is the national emergency number and 108 connects to ambulance services in many states. Nobody will blame you for calling too early. For care near Mangadu, Kovur and Porur, see Kanaga Hospital’s Emergency Care and 24-hour casualty services.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What causes cardiac arrest?

Cardiac arrest is mainly caused by an electrical malfunction, such as ventricular fibrillation, that suddenly stops the heartbeat and blood flow. Common underlying causes include coronary artery disease, a heart attack, cardiomyopathy, inherited rhythm disorders, electrolyte imbalance, drowning, electric shock and drug overdose.

2. Which is more dangerous, a heart attack or a cardiac arrest?

Cardiac arrest is more immediately life-threatening because it stops blood flow to the brain and organs within seconds, and without CPR and a shock, death can follow within minutes. A heart attack is also a serious emergency and can lead to cardiac arrest.

3. What is heart attack vs cardiac arrest?

A heart attack is caused by the blockage of blood flow in the coronary arteries, so the heart muscle is starved of oxygen. Cardiac arrest happens due to an electrical malfunction that suddenly stops the heart from pumping. In a heart attack the person is usually awake; in cardiac arrest they collapse and are unresponsive.

4. What are the warning signs of a cardiac arrest?

The warning signs of a cardiac arrest can include chest discomfort, dizziness, shortness of breath, palpitations and fatigue. However, many people have no warning signs at all and collapse suddenly, becoming unconscious and not breathing normally.

5. Can I recover fully after a heart attack or a cardiac arrest?

Many people recover well after a heart attack and return to a normal lifestyle, especially with prompt treatment, medicines and cardiac rehabilitation. Recovery after a cardiac arrest depends on how fast CPR and a shock were given and on the extent of brain injury, so outcomes vary widely.

6. Can a heart attack cause cardiac arrest?

Yes. A heart attack can damage the heart’s electrical system and trigger a dangerous rhythm such as ventricular fibrillation, which causes cardiac arrest. This is why heart attack symptoms need emergency care even if the person feels well enough to talk.

7. Do you give CPR for a heart attack?

Not if the person is awake and breathing. CPR is only for someone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally. If a person having a heart attack collapses and stops breathing normally, start chest compressions and use an AED.

8. Is cardiac arrest the same as heart failure?

No. Heart failure means the heart pumps less effectively over time but keeps beating. Cardiac arrest is a sudden electrical failure that stops the heartbeat completely. People with heart failure do have a higher risk of cardiac arrest.

9. Can you have a heart attack without knowing it?

Yes. Some heart attacks are “silent”, with mild or unusual symptoms such as fatigue or indigestion-like discomfort, and are only found later on an ECG or scan. They are more common in older adults and people with diabetes.

10. What should I do first if someone collapses?

Check if they respond and are breathing normally. If not, call 112 or 108, put the phone on speaker, start hard and fast chest compressions in the centre of the chest, and send someone for an AED.

 

 

Also read: How to Choose the Best Multispeciality Hospital in Chennai  | Top 10 Best Multispeciality Hospitals in Chennai

Medical disclaimer: The information in this article is intended for educational purposes and does not replace advice from a qualified healthcare professional. Always consult your doctor about your own health, symptoms, or treatment.