Yes, women
New research has revea 50 per cent more likely t following a cardiac event,
SARAH Walsh wasn’t a typical candidate for a heart attack. At 47 she was considered to be too young, she wasn’t overweight and was otherwise fit and healthy. So when an ambulance was called to her home in Southampton three days before Christmas last year because she was struggling to breathe, the paramedics treating her initially thought she’d suffered a panic attack.
Yet within 30 minutes the mum-oftwo had gone into cardiac arrest and her husband Keith, 47, was asked to carry out chest compressions to keep her heart pumping while paramedics got the defibrillator ready.
“I don’t remember much about what happened to me,” says Sarah, who is mum to Liam, 25, Lacey, 18, and stepmum to Marianne, 18, and Jack, 15. “Yet for my family, it was terrifying. My husband will never forget it.
“Even now I can’t believe that I’ve had a heart CHEST PAINS: Heart attacks are the biggest killer of women in the UK attack, it doesn’t seem real.” British Heart Foundation (BHF)-funded research from Leeds University has revealed that women are 50 per cent more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack. Around 28,000 women die from heart attacks each year in the UK, making it the single biggest killer of women in the UK, three times more than breast cancer. Yet for some reason the myth persists that only older, overweight men who smoke are likely to be victims. “This research clearly shows that women are at a higher risk of being misdiagnosed following a heart attack than men. When people su wr po re ris BH on to at pe pe en ov Th at th aw at pr ah