What is a heart attack?

Answer:
Also known as an acute myocardial infarction (say that

three times fast), a heart attack occurs when the heart muscle is damaged due to an insufficient supply of oxygen carrying blood.

This happens when a coronary artery becomes completely or nearly completely blocked. The area of the heart damaged determines the severity of the heart attack.

A person suffering a heart attack will experience pain and pressure in the chest, which often spreads to the neck, shoulder, and arm. There are about 1.5 million heart attacks that occur in the United States every year, of those, around 500,000 result in death. According to statistics, a heart attack occurs every 20 seconds. Heart attack deaths occur about every minute.


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