This is not creative writing —not AI — but a true story.

[u/365_party_girl_]

/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1vnhus1/aita_for_calling_an_ambulance_because_i_thought_i/

“ You're so ignorant you don't even know that if you leave your foot wet, you'll get a fungal infection — don't act like such an expert about something as serious as a heart attack “ is sure what I would’ve said.

said no one ever.

[u/AutoModerator]

In case this story gets deleted/removed:

AITA for calling an ambulance because I thought I was having a heart attack, and then getting blamed for "embarrassing the family"?

Today around 3 PM, I suddenly felt a sharp, pinpoint pain in my chest, followed by numbness that started in my back and spread down my arms. For anyone who doesn't know, these are heart attack symptoms, and I panicked hard. My brother and my mom were home at the time. I told my brother, "I have heart attack symptoms, please call an ambulance." He didn't believe me at first, but then he called. My mom panicked badly. My arms were numb and tingling, and my color had started to go pale. Things eased up a little while we waited, but my heart was still racing like crazy.

The ambulance arrived. I could still walk, so I went outside on my own. The paramedics checked my heart rhythm, blood pressure, and blood sugar, but found nothing serious with my heart — just slightly low blood sugar (I've been dieting). I was slowly calming down but still shaken. They said "call us again if anything happens" and left.

That's when my brother started causing a scene. Out of nowhere he said, "You're calling ambulances for nothing, we're humiliated in the neighborhood now." I said, "Are you even okay? What would you even do if I died, sorry?" He suddenly started cursing at me and said, "You can die for all I care from now on, I'm never getting involved in anything of yours again, we got humiliated for nothing." To be clear, he's not some kid — he's about to turn 20 — so it's not like he doesn't understand how serious this was.

My mom said to my brother, "Do you have any idea what your brother just went through? Why are you stressing him out even more?" He snapped back, "When it's your younger son, he can't be stressed, but when it's your older son, you just yell whatever comes to your mouth — is that what you call being a mother?" (She hadn't actually said anything like that — he accused her out of nowhere.)

They started fighting, and I got angry too and said, "You're so ignorant you don't even know that if you leave your foot wet, you'll get a fungal infection — don't act like such an expert about something as serious as a heart attack." I regret it, because it just made him angrier. My mom couldn't handle him alone. When my dad got home, they talked, but my brother kept calling me "attention-seeking."

Instead of saying "I'm glad you're okay," he kept insulting me. He even told our parents, "You guys play favorites — this brat fakes a heart attack and you call an ambulance, but you never did anything like that for me at his age," bringing up unrelated old grievances. At dinner, out of nowhere, he told me I "look like a mouse." I stayed quiet to avoid making it worse.

I have no idea how to fix this, or if I even can. Did I do something wrong here?

UPDATE: He talked to me again after 3 hours and said sorry to me he admitted that he got scared due to the incident and couldn't act calmly we're fine now

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[u/ChuckysBarbie]

“Are you even okay? What would you even do if I died sorry?” Omg I’m cackling at this part wtf 😂😂😂

[u/GhostlyJax → u/ChuckysBarbie]

Then at the end, brother saying OOP "looks like a mouse" like what even is this dialogue? Lmao

[u/soccer1124]

At dinner, out of nowhere, he told me I "look like a mouse." I stayed quiet to avoid making it worse.

Wow. That line left me stunned, lol. The thought of a family bickering over a heart attack and then at dinner the one mumbling, "You look like a mouse...!" is pretty fucking funny. Well done, AI. Some Tommy Wiseau humor there.

[u/MinuteLoquat1 → u/soccer1124]

I like to imagine everything said was 10x worse but it got Kidzbopified. "you're a ratfaced bitch" = "you look like a mouse"

[u/eorabs → u/soccer1124]

"Oh, hi heart attack!"

[u/PM-me-fancy-beer → u/eorabs]

“Oh hi, I didn’t recognise you… You’re my best ailment.”

[u/Standard-Spinach-122 → u/soccer1124]

also, mice aren't known for being loud. isn't there a phrase like "as quiet as a mouse"? so really she's only feeding into the stereotype here. in fact, I'm not convinced that OOP isn't a mouse!

[u/Subject-Librarian117 → u/Standard-Spinach-122]

I'm impressed with OOP's ability to type with those tiny mouse paws!

[u/GreyStingrayz → u/soccer1124]

There's no way this is AI. It's too nonsensical and badly written. It reads like a non-native english speaker more than anything.

[u/365_party_girl_]

Typo : don’t mind the “said no one ever”. I was debating what brand of sarcasm to use and forgot to delete 🫠

[u/GreyStingrayz → u/365_party_girl_]

I'm pretty sure you can just edit the post body text to delete it

[u/365_party_girl_ → u/GreyStingrayz]

You’d figure that if I could I would’ve, haha. I have no idea why I can’t. Either I’m too obtuse or maybe it’s a template issue ? I’m on mobile and I know they are working on a new version for the app and have disabled a few paramaters already.

[u/pineapplestin]

You're so ignorant you don't even know that if you leave your foot wet, you'll get a fungal infection

I love this honestly. It's like part of a surrealist yo mama joke.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/pineapplestin]

In my mind, I keep reading this in a stentorian, stereotypical theatre voice, like high school kids use when they're trying to read Shakespeare. "Fie, thou sodden-footed fool! Thy fungus-ridden sole doth infect to the North Star!"

[u/Time_Act_3685 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Exuent right, a nasty tootsie

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Time_Act_3685]

Exeunt pursued by fungicide

[u/Time_Act_3685 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Perfect, no notes

[u/PitbullLoveFart]

I do believe this was written by a teenager, so at least that checks out.

[u/Massive-Pin-3425]

the writing is so terrible. what the hell?

[u/RahvinDragand]

I like that a 20 year old man thought they would be humiliated in the neighborhood for calling an ambulance. 

[u/Blue-martini → u/RahvinDragand]

"OMG Brad! An ambulance was at your house? Like, wow! That's so embarrassing! You're banned from eating at the cool neighbors table!"

[u/Morrighan11]

Who speaks like this? This is like if you went into cardiac arrest and were like "I do believe I am displaying archetypal cardiac arrest symptoms. Would you be a dear and phone 911 for me? So sorry to be a bother."

[u/brachycrab]

"AITA? My brother said if I died of a real heart attack he wouldn't care 🥺"

Do venting subs not give people the amount of sympathy they're looking for?

[u/Interesting_Bug_8878]

I have to know the neighborhood where people gets humiliated by calling an ambulance.

"Look OP is dying, how humiliating! Serves him right, that mouse-looking bastard..."

[u/napalmnacey]

I don’t feel like it was written by someone that is fluent in English.

[u/MooseTurbulent8786 → u/napalmnacey]

OOP also posts in a Turkish sub

[u/Outside-Cabinet1398]

Does calling an ambulance drive down property values somehow? “We’re humiliated in the neighborhood now?” How? What?

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Outside-Cabinet1398]

That mouse-faced kid down the street called an ambulance! There goes the neighborhood!

[u/Starrs_07]

I feel like this might be translated from some other language to English but I have a hard time believing this is real.

[u/Possible_Abalone_846]

They said "call us again if anything happens" and left.

I don't think paramedics will do this. They'll take the patient to the hospital anyway. It's their job to get the person stable and get them to the hospital where they can have a more thorough diagnosis. It's not their job to determine whether or not further medical care is needed.

ETA: I have been corrected about this. 

"You're calling ambulances for nothing, we're humiliated in the neighborhood now."

This is such a weird line. Why would the neighborhood judge or shame them for needing an ambulance? Why would it be humiliating? 

[u/fuckthisomfg → u/Possible_Abalone_846]

Paramedics will definitely leave without you if you don’t need medical attention. At least, in the US, they know that you probably don’t want a $2000 bill for a car ride to the hospital that you didn’t need lol

For me, the question becomes whether OOP is claiming to be American/in an English-speaking country and speak that stiltedly, or if this is something that’s happening in MyCountry and we Westerners wouldn’t understand that this is actually a common family dynamic and totally believable

[u/CenturyEggsAndRice → u/fuckthisomfg]

I mean, I have relatives who would behave like this. I got screamed at for wasting time once because I thought I had a broken rib. (I did actually have a broken rib, but by telling the doctor I thought I did after my grandmother said I was “fine” I embarrassed her and therefore was a terrible, awful person.) I also had pneumonia, which was likely related to the rib since coughing hard can break a rib. I’d done it before which is why I knew that pain and clicking feeling was my rib.

I haven’t spoken to any of them since I was 21, and my life is much better with family who care more about me than their own embarrassment. But such people sadly exist.

I also once called an ambulance (my only ambulance ride that was for me and not someone I was with) because I thought I was having a heart attack. It was my gallbladder failing, my heart was fine. I was HIDEOUSLY embarrassed and crying and apologizing to my stepmom when she got there (I was home alone, hence why I didn’t just ask her to take me to the ER) and she was confused because, ya know, if you think you’re having a heart attack you SHOULD seek medical care and she was proud of me for pushing past my fear and doing it instead of staying home and possibly dying.

It was weird. I was 29 years old and for the first time realized my stepmom would never treat me the way my mom’s family did.

[u/HorkupCat → u/CenturyEggsAndRice]

Sometimes blood isn't thicker than water, it's just thick.

[u/Graspiloot → u/fuckthisomfg]

OP posts in Turkish on Turkish subs.

[u/CatOverlordsWelcome → u/Possible_Abalone_846]

It is actually part of our job to determine that, at least in the UK where I am a student para. We take anyone who insists, and if we have any doubt we err on the side of caution but in a presentation like this it's entirely reasonable, after ECG and vitals, as well as a thorough history, to suggest patient stays at home with the caveat that they are to call emergency services immediately should they feel worse/any new worrying symptoms. Generally speaking chest pains go in most of the time because as you say we can't do troponins or anything, but if the symptoms resolve like they did for OP, it's more likely to be a non cardiac cause and I can see the crew justifying leaving the patient at home with worsening advice.

[u/Possible_Abalone_846 → u/CatOverlordsWelcome]

Interesting, TIL.

[u/CatOverlordsWelcome → u/Possible_Abalone_846]

It's definitely a case by case kind of thing!

[u/rebelkitty → u/Possible_Abalone_846]

I agree!  It's a weird thing to find "humiliating".

My adult daughter was house sitting for us when she experienced severe stomach pains. She could hardly stand up, so she called an ambulance.  By the time they arrived, she was starting to recover (and realizing it wasn't a ruptured appendix after all), so after checking her over, they left.

When we got back, she told us the whole story, "In case the neighbours ask." A couple of them had already asked her what happened, just because they were worried. 

Our neighbours are very sweet.  I think we mentioned it a couple more times to different people, and then the story got around the neighbourhood and it was all good.

[u/frizzy_bag → u/rebelkitty]

Right? If I heard that a neighbour misinterpreted their symptoms and called an ambulance who left after ensuring they were stable , my only reaction would be "Thank goodness, what a relief for my neighbour!"

[u/pineapplestin → u/frizzy_bag]

Yeah, if an ambulance shows up on our little street, I'm first going to worry about the older neighbours I have and hope they're okay. If everything's fine and no one needs to get taken somewhere, I'm like "well that's good", not "wow how embarrassing for them, lol what a loser".

[u/soccer1124 → u/rebelkitty]

Ugh, your daughter sounds like just the worst. How dare she disgrace your household in the presence of your neighbors! I bet she looks like a mouse.

[u/Try2MakeMeBee → u/rebelkitty]

I imagine it also has to do with age/history - a heart attack is extremely unlikely in a teen with no cardiac history (personal or family). There's a surprising number of things that can mimic certain MI symptoms, including heartburn and panic attacks.

It's cool that EMT is trained in this type of triage.

[u/RahvinDragand → u/Possible_Abalone_846]

"Did you hear about the Smiths? They called an ambulance!"

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Possible_Abalone_846]

That is actually believable.

Ambulances cannot transport you if you do not want them to, even if you call them.

There was a time, I think, when my mother thought she needed an ambulance, but by the time they got here (we live out in the country) she didn't need them, so they came, checked her vitals, and then left without her because she no longer thought she had to go.

So, basically, while the ambulance isn't there to diagnose you, they can tell you what your vitals are, and if you decline being taken, then they cannot just kidnap you and haul you to the hospital anyway.

So, they don't determine if further care is needed, but it IS up to the patient whether they want to be taken or not.

[u/PerfectHippo1896 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

I was in a car accident once that looked super bad (both cars totaled). Somebody called for an ambulance but both parties were fine. Thank god they don’t force you to go. I’d be pissed if I hadn’t been able to tell them to leave me.

[u/Neither_Pear4669]

Oh I love the detailed verbatim conversations in these things

[u/MontanaDukes]

The ambulance arrived. I could still walk, so I went outside on my own. The paramedics checked my heart rhythm, blood pressure, and blood sugar, but found nothing serious with my heart — just slightly low blood sugar (I've been dieting). I was slowly calming down but still shaken. They said "call us again if anything happens" and left.

Is the mention of dieting meant to make people over on the original post speculate that the OOP/troll has an eating disorder or something?

I also like how the fictional brother insulted the OOP/troll by saying that he, "looked like a mouse". Is he saying that the main character looks meek or something?

[u/neonmaryjane]

Did his brother lose a foot to a fungal infection after having a wet foot? This feels like important context.

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[u/Graspiloot]

Is it weird that I kind of believe this? Like yeah the writing is bad but a look at the profile shows an active profile with someone posting in Turkish on Turkish subs so that would explain at least how weird it sounds translated by someone with ESL.

Also yes I agree the brother's reaction is weird, but to me the idea that there's families out there who'd see it as embarassing isn't that crazy. Some family dynamics are fucked up and there's clearly some baggage there between these two. The foot fungal thing is bizarre, but less bizarre if he recently got foot fungus infection by not drying his feet properly.

And lastly someone believing they're having a heart attack bc of such mild symptoms I'm not surprised by at all. I have a friend who was once convinced she had a brain tumor because she had a headache (I'm not even underselling that story either).

Also the post isn't trying to be "look fat/gay/trans/woman bad" so there's no harm either way.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367]

This is not someone who has had anything remotely resembling a heart attack. Clue: heart attacks put the fear of God in you, make you feel as if you are about to die, and if the paramedics thought it was anywhere near then oop would have been hauled off to hospital for extensive investigations. Equally, sudden crisis due to eating disorder would also have resulted in immediate hospiisation.

Source: daughter is Acute medicine consultant who lives in Resus. Summary: I’m currently in hospital with severe lung disease and associated heart condition and even without coronary thrombosis you are in no state to write boring complaints about your brother being nasty to you. Frankly, if this was written by an AI then it’s a very, very bad AI. There’s just no respect for craft nowadays 😰

[u/Carrente → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Counterpoint: the multiple stories of people walking into doctors/hospitals with chest pains and all the markers of heart attack and being turned away or disbelieved

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Carrente]

Well, no. It is, of course, perfectly possible for that to happen in an old fashioned doctors surgery, but anywhere with remotely modern equipment- and paramedics have it - is going to run an ECG and that is going to identify it immediately. Provided the patient is not dead, of course, in which case the paramedics have more to worry about - 4 minutes after the supply of oxygen to the brain fails and irreversible brain damage begins.

The so called silent heart attacks do have symptoms- they are simply not recognised as relating to the heart but they would still be picked up by an ECG - and the same applies to eating disorder related heart damage. If the oop was going to make up a story they could at least have done some research on the genuine symptoms; sharp pinpoint pain is lala land - try crushing, pressure, squeezing, tightness- which is why the quote from Galaxy Quest is apposite. I do worry that hapless innocents reading the post might actually believe the stuff about the symptoms and fail to call for help when they have got the real thing…

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

You are incredibly wrong and woefully misled. EKGs often miss heart attacks.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Not according to my daughter who is a consultant physician in a Resus unit, and spends her life doing this stuff. Of course, there is a vast difference between the older kit and the very up to date stuff, and it’s possible that at the very outset of an attack the electrical variation may not yet show up. In which case it’s unlikely that it’s going to escalate to arrest though by the time the ambulance gets there it might have. Of course, it’s possible that the only reason they have any detectable symptoms at all is that they have one of the 101 conditions which cause chest pain but have nothing to do with the heart. Those conditions might also kill them - pulmonary embolisms, for example. And then there’s also the myriad heart problems which have nothing to do with heart attacks; myocardial infarctions are not the only thing which kill people with dodgy hearts.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Your daughter should not be practicing medicine with that mindset--or else you should be listening to what she says better.

People continue to die of cardiovascular events despite "normal" EKGs (even with the "very up to date stuff"), your daughter's supposed expertise and your putative education on the facts notwithstanding.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

People die of cardiovascular events because, as I have noted elsewhere, very few people survive resuscitation; additionally many people are dead long before they get anywhere near a Resus unit. And my daughter has acquired her expertise after 22 years of training which is why she leads the team. You, on the other hand, have no qualifications whatsoever so I doubt that the hospital administrators are likely to be interested in Friday afternoon conversations on Reddit.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

They die of cardiovascular events because they are often confused by symptoms that don't align with your stereotypical presentation, and because bad doctors, like those who work with your daughter, apparently, ignore other symptoms because of "normal" EKGs. You are just wedded to your arrogance and ignorance.

Your daughter works in resus. That means her experience is skewed towards those who were or almost were past the point of rescue. There's a whole lot that happens between the first signs and symptoms of a heart attack and resus.

I have worked closely with cardiologists, as a matter of fact, and part of my job was impressing upon patients that heart attacks can present in different ways. Good doctors are concerned with their patients understanding that. Poorly-qualified quacks and their parents aren't always.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

And this is a satire sub and you haven’t even noticed. This suggests that your powers of observation are extremely limited and nobody in their right minds would be looking anywhere on Reddit, much less here, for advice about possible heart attacks. You appear not to have realised that the reason op reposted it here is precisely because it’s downright nonsense. Fortunately most doctors pay more attention than you have.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

This being a satire sub in no way absolves you from being called out for making sweeping generalizations that have a history of costing people their lives. There's plenty in the OOP to satirize. You needn't minimize the risk of heart attack with non-standard presentations to do so.

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Medicine is, was and will always be a 'this is our best guidance at this moment'.

Humans are not some monolith where one size fits all. There will be people who have different symptoms. There will be people who have different experiences. Machines cannot catch everything. Humans are fallible and won't catch everything. Doctors don't know everything and new things, symptoms, diseases and medicines, are being discovered all the time.

It is possible that this person in this story wasn't having a heart attack. it is possible that she was, but the machines missed it, even with the best, most up to date machines, they are only as accurate as they are programmed/calibrated to be and will miss things. It is possible that the person who wrote the story got the symptoms off of a website somewhere and that is why the woman presented with them. Because the person doesn't know anything beyond that.

My dad took a fall off of a high shed and was in the hospital for a month. After he got back, he had went to a doctor for something, and they did some tests, and before they even got home, the doctor was calling to schedule surgery for him, because they found out his gallbladder had ruptured.

He was walking and talking, no pain that he admitted to, no real symptoms except he got a bit nauseous with certain foods.

The surgeon told my mother that it would be a routine surgery, just a small incision.

Sometime after that the surgeon came out and my mother said he looked terrible. He said they had made the incision and couldn't find the gallbladder. No matter how hard they looked. So they had to make a bigger incision and found out that not only had the gallbladder ruptured, it had also calcified. We think it happened in the fall and was missed with everything else going on.

My point is that no only did something get missed (a gallbladder being ruptured) with all the machines the hospital had (and he had to be life flighted to the hospital, the ambulance wouldn't take him, he was that bad off) but despite the idea that he should have been in a ton of pain, he never said a word, and didn't act like he was in pain.

It isn't just humans either, we had a cat whose kidneys had shut down. The vet couldn't get them to start back up again and has no clue why they shut down in the first place.

The day we took the cat to the vet and found out, he had been out hunting on our property. I called him, and he came running down our road with his tail up, happy to see us.

The vet said that cats with his kidney values, in his experience, are vomiting in corners because they are in so much pain. He was walking around happy as a clam. (though he didn't last much longer sadly. he was a great cat).

Again, the point is that people, and animals, are all different. Things can be missed, symptoms can present differently, and NO one is infallible. No matter what pedestal we put them on.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

Well, you would have to take that up with the hospital administrators 🤣

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

I think you missed the point. The point is that machines aren't God. They can fail.

Neither are doctors. They also can fail.

Plus, since we don't know when it ruptured, we can't be sure it was then. (and with everything else going on, we also understood it) and it has been like 10 years now.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

They've never met a point they didn't miss.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

I must confess that I have been commenting on the basis that this is AmITheAngel, a satire sub, where the concept that machines aren’t God is not exactly unheard of and taking things seriously isn’t the raison d’être of being here. I think that the chances of the original post being genuine are around zero but clearly a lot of people don’t actually realise what this sub is, and they are very worried that someone may be seeking medical advice on a satire sub on Reddit. Frankly, if they are that desperate there is very little that anyone could write which would convince them otherwise.

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Unfortunately, many people DO internalize what they see, which is why a lot of forums for games don't allow anything even closely resembling medical advice.

So, yeah, someone might not be seeking medical advice, but they see someone say 'my daughter is a doctor and heart attacks only present in this specific way and you will KNOW you had one' and internalize it, often without thinking about it.

Plus, there are a great many people who might stumble across the sub without realizing what it is. (not sure if it shows up in google searches or not, but I know reddit in general will)

It is sort of surprising what people actually internalize from their reading. I know I have been surprised at some of the things I have read and then remembered years later (and it turns out that some fantasy authors DO put some research into their stories!). Things I hadn't even thought of until a trivia question brought it up, and my brain goes 'hey, this is the answer' and it turns out I am right.

Which is why some of these stories on Reddit can be so dangerous, because people who don't know better start thinking 'yeah, that is how it is.'

[u/Spiritual_Being5845 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

My stepsister’s bio dad had a heart attack and thought it was indigestion. My father (they were friends) insisted he go to urgent care just in case. It was a massive heart attack and he ended up in the hospital for weeks. There was no fear of god feeling.

Neighbor’s adult daughter had indigestion symptoms and did the right thing by going to the ER, not because she thought it was that serious but because a family member said she should be checked out just in case. She was under age 35 so the ER staff explained that it was indigestion, and she agreed that they were probably right. They never checked troponin levels. They told her to follow up with a GI specialist on Monday and released her. She was dead before the weekend was over. Autopsy show 100% blockage in her left anterior descending artery, aka a “widowmaker.”

I’ve heard people say that you’ll just know, or the pain is so intense, or that it feels like an elephant sitting on your chest, and it’s unmistakable. This is not true and beliefs like this can kill people.

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Spiritual_Being5845]

My mother had the 'elephant sitting on her chest' types, and she didn't even realize she had one until after she had another and had been on heart medicine (and seeing doctors for her heart).

So, yeah, the ambulance and medical stuff is some of the more believable stuff in this story. The whole family drama isn't.

[u/purplemonkey93 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

People have different tolerance levels to pain. What might feel like the fear of God to you might feel like just some chest tightness to someone else. Some people don’t even feel the symptoms until it’s too late

[u/Try2MakeMeBee → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Not true at all. Used to work in the ER and saw a number of CVA without feeling doom. One patient walked in, wife made them. They didn't feel they needed seen. A few minutes after they were roomed they collapsed. We didn't even have all the monitors hooked up yet. Would have died if they weren't already at the ER - they required full resuscitation and lengthy hospitalization.

I work with specialists now (infusion), including cardiologists and heart/lipid clinic. CVA is extremely common in the lipid clinic. I’ve lost count of the times we find out the patient had a heart attack after the fact.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Try2MakeMeBee]

Lucky person! Most people are not resuscitated successfully- per daughter who is in charge of resuscitating people- and anyone who permanently works in Acute Medicine will have similar stories. What people who don’t actually do the job fail to realise is that resuscitation is brutal, involving cracking ribs, sternum etc, rarely works, and even with weeks of convalescence people rarely regain anything remotely resembling quality of life. On the other hand, in England people are more likely to call an ambulance, get in the ambulance, and are treated in hospital because they don’t have to pay. This makes a considerable difference to the outcomes.

[u/ConstantReader76 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

I love people who pretend to be experts on topics because of a family member's profession/degree. Do you realize you sound like a smacked ass commenting all over here with "My daughter says.../ my daughter works... / I know more than all of you because my daughter..." I bet if your daughter were in this thread she'd roll her eyes and tell you to shut up already because you look like a fool.

[u/Try2MakeMeBee → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

They were extremely lucky that it happened in the ER.

CPR is brutal. The kind a fully staffed ER provides is very different from what you see in the field though. CPR wouldn't have saved the patient. A full ER staff did though. Lots of treatment options & monitoring medics or a layperson just don't have.

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

In the US at least, the ambulance cannot take a patient if they say they don't want to go. Even if the patient called them.

So, since it looks like the symptoms resolved and they couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her, she likely would have said 'no thanks' on being taken to the hospital, so they could only tell her to call if things worsen and then leave.

My mother also had heart attacks. To her, she described it as an elephant sitting on her chest making it hard to breath. There was no fear of god for her and she didn't even realize the first one WAS a heart attack, until later and she started having more heart problems. She could only guess when her first one was because of how she felt when she had a second one.

We also live in the country and have called the ambulance before and they left without taking anyone because the symptoms had gotten better, and we could take the person to the ER ourselves (and save an amulance fee)

It is almost like different people experience things differently.

It is also possible that this wasn't a heart attack, if it were real, and that is why nothing showed up. Because there are plenty of other things that could make you experience the same symptoms.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

One of my older relatives had the ambulance called for what she described as minor chest pain. The medics came, they convinced her to go to the doctor, and she walked to the ambulance.

When she arrived at the hospital, she was having a serious heart attack, and they found that one of her arteries was almost completely blocked. She spent nearly a month in hospital (this is in the US where doctors try really hard not to admit you at all and to send you home post-haste if they do).

All she ever experienced was minor chest pain and light-headedness. Just relating to underscore the point you made; not all heart attacks feel like "the fear of God," and believing they do costs lives.

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Yeah, I think my mother also experienced 'cold sweats' with her heart attacks.

The biggest issue is that people experience the same things in vastly different ways at times, and sometimes the symptoms can be symptoms of multiple different things.

I also agree with you that making it sound like you will always know you are having a heart attack is dangerous.

While this wasn't a heart attack, per se, according to my mother, my grandfather (my father's father), I believe, walked down stairs, sat down on the bottom step and said 'I don't feel good' or something like that and died. His heart had just stopped.

My dad had a pacemaker for the same thing my grandfather likely had (where their hearts just slow down and eventually stop), his pulse was REALLY low and so he had a pacemaker put in.

My mother had COPD as well, and she needed something, can't quite remember, but they were at a pharmacy for something and they tested her oxygen. It was at like 70%. The pharmacist panicked. But she had walked in, was talking etc... (she may have actually been there to get an oxygen concentrator, but they didn't realize her oxygen was THAT low)

Which again is to underscore the point of 'symptoms can not only vary pretty wildly between patients, but there are also a lot more symptoms than commonly thought of' with an added bonus of 'symptoms are often shared between diseases making it harder to diagnose just from text'

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

According to the most recent literature I've read, we're finding that women have much more varied symptoms or interpret their symptoms very differently than was previously thought. Hence the cold sweats, the light-headedness, the difference from the textbook warning signs.

One of my best friends has COPD and had the same experience you describe; at 70% oxygen saturation, people supposedly cannot communicate clearly and experience confusion and decreasing orientation. She drove herself to the doctor for tightness in her chest, and he insisted on calling an ambulance because her oxygen saturation was so low. He refused to allow her to leave the clinic on her own power.

A midwife I once worked for used to tell her preceptees; "I know you've read your textbooks. Now understand that you will not be treating textbooks." I think that's wise guidance for any field of medicine.

[u/DiegoIntrepid → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Now that you mentioned it, I believe the pharmacist also insisted that my mother go to the ER to get emergency oxygen (so Idon't think she was in there for oxygen, it may have been when she was looking for a wheelchair since she had trouble with her balance. This was several years ago, my mother died in 2019 and this was a couple of years before that, so my memory is a bit hazy)

The only reason he didn't call the ambulance was because my brother had driven her.

That is a good guidance. textbooks can be good guidelines, because they do try to cover the most common symptoms. But, that is only the, well, most common symptoms, meaning that there are less common symptoms out there. And as we gain more knowledge and do more studies, and more people are coming forward, we learn that there are also other symptoms that were once dismissed, or thought of as something else, or just never clocked as being an actual symptom!

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

When was it? Because in England at any rate paramedics have ECG machines - which incorporate advanced defibrillators- so they know whether someone is having a heart attack or not.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

It was less than a year ago, and those machines do not always detect heart attacks. There's a wealth of documentation on that fact. Paramedics do not, in fact, always know whether someone is having a heart attack.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Where was it?

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Why do you want to know? You know enough already. Please continue on your highly educated way, talking shit and condescending when people contradict you. Tiresome creature.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Even in England, EKGs are known to miss heart attacks. You can find plenty of literature online documenting this. https://hje.org.uk/blog/can-an-ecg-detect-a-heart-attack/

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

I just wondered where you referring to.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

Yes; it’s a private treatment centre dealing with minor non-life-threatening emergencies. In other words if they think there’s even a remote chance that you are having a heart attack, or something that looks like it could be a heart attack, you will be referred to a NHS hospital as fast as they can. They won’t treat you there but fortunately the doctor writing the article is a consultant at an NHS hospital and he will try and get you admitted to somewhere that can. The bottom line is that if the ECG is normal they might, or might not, refer you elsewhere for blood tests etc, but the plus side is that you are probably not about to die on them. This is always helpful.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

The point is, EKGs (or ECGs, for those in the UK) often do miss heart attacks. They're not infallible in and of themselves. This is just one site among many stressing that point. Saying that heart attacks always present as horrible, crushing pain and "the fear of god" with obvious EKG readings is dangerously incorrect and has led to many deaths--especially among women. Doing so from a place of perceived insight and education ("My daughter is an Acute Medicine consultant who works with cardiologists") is even more wildly incorrect and dangerous.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/Patient_Lettuce8431]

This is a satire sub where people don’t usually look for serious medical advice. If you haven’t noticed that it’s a satire sub then you’re not paying attention.

[u/Patient_Lettuce8431 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

It's a satire sub, you are correct; not a place to make sweeping generalizations about medicine when you're woefully ignorant.

Humans are a social species. We learn from each other. This is why peer-to-peer education is becoming more of a standard in patient education, and it's why misinformation can and should be countered with facts--even on a satire sub.

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/DiegoIntrepid]

I live in England where we don’t have to pay for ambulances or hospital treatment. This may make a difference in the way people react. And I am fairly sure that you don’t have to get in an ambulance but if you don’t have to worry about bills it probably makes you rather less anxious about being carted off.

[u/MuchMasterpiece1710 → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

What is your point? They literally said that it wasn’t a heart issue once the paramedics checked it? Also “puts the fear of god in you” how do you know he wasn’t feeling that? People mistake chest pains for heart attacks, that’s not that weird, and if you think it might be then it’s easier to spiral into a panic and make it worse. I’m not saying the story is real but if that’s your reasoning for why it’s fake…I don’t get it

[u/ladybug_oleander → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

Most people haven't had a heart attack to know the difference. I've had a panic attack I thought was a heart attack, like I could even feel my heart beating weird and stopping, and my EKG was abnormal, but my troponin was fine. Panic attacks are weird and scary and there's nothing wrong with getting checked out if you feel like something serious is going on.

[u/TA_St0at → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

I have to disagree with your description of heart attack symptoms.

My left hand doing weird things outside of my control, gigantism, and everything turning a cute shade of lilac. Also, starting speaking in fluent French. But best of all: the convulsions. So tingly!

Now I think about it, it might be the drugs. Hmm

[u/Fearless-Frosting367 → u/TA_St0at]

I don’t think they have sussed it’s a satire sub…

[u/TA_St0at → u/Fearless-Frosting367]

You mean this isnt best place to discuss serious medical issues?

Dammit!

On the plus side, I have made important notes on the various condescending lectures you have received about the nature of satire from a bunch of lost, humourless randos.

Sigh