Minutes make all the difference in a cardiac emergency. The first 30 minutes are the most important and getting the best emergency care right then is essential.
The Golden Hour
The first 60 minutes called the Golden Hour; the first 30 minutes are even more crucial and critical in ensuring survival.  The issue is not with respect to speed but the quality of care; the better the emergency care, the better the chances of the patient’s endurance.
Therefore rushing a patient to the nearest medical facility may not always be the best idea because while they will be able to provide primary care which could have been given at the site itself they may not be equipped with advanced critical care expertise. Therefore it is very important to be aware of the things that can be done immediately to the patient that will minimize the damage and render him/her stable enough to be transported to a good and efficient medical care facility.

From Crisis to Resolution
Let’s take the example of two people in need of emergency medical care and compare the results after one of them gets untrained help and the other trained..
The immediate response of the family makes all the difference. Remember , your response spells the difference between life and death.
Case scenario : 1
Step 1:
1>    Patient encounters a cardiac emergency
2>    People panic around him
3>    Nobody knows how to help the patient
4>    They make a call to an ambulance from any hospital
10-20 min are taken for this.
Step 2:
1>    Waiting for the arrival of the ambulance
2>    No treatment given only panic spreading
3>    Ambulance arrives and patient and patient shifted to nearby nursing home or hospital
40-60 min taken
Step3:
1>    Singing into the hospital with history taking and everything.
2>    Information given by untrained person who is unaware of what is going on
3>    The medical care facility may cater only to primary care and may not be equipped to handle advanced ICU facilities.
60-90 min have gone past.
Step 4:
1>    If proper facilities are not available patient needs to be shifted to an equipped facility.
2>    Ambulance may also not be rightfully equipped.
Another 60-90 min later…

Therefore 3-4 hours are lost in deciding the right medical treatment by untrained personnel. If you really read further with the next example and see how easily we avoid and minimize the damage to even half the results would be remarkable. The consequences of the above example are:
a)    Serious loss of valuable time at each step
b)    The golden hour of life saving is lost in irrelevant things.
c)    This may cost the patient his/her life not because it was not correctable but because nobody knew the right thing to do.
d)    And care offered to such an individual will have residual effects as considerable damage has irreversibly set in with the loss of THE GOLDEN HOUR.

Remember, your response spells the difference between life and death.

The emergency cardiac care offered by trained and knowledgeable individuals will be discussed right here tomorrow…