Katherine Fitzgerald, then 57, had just arrived at a graduation party when she started feeling uncomfortably hot and nauseous. Her chest tightened with pain and she began to “vomit violently,” she recalls. When someone called her 911 and paramedics arrived, they said she was having a panic attack and she was appalled by the paramedics’ response.
“I explained my symptoms. I said, ‘No, I’m not having a panic attack.’ I think I’m going to die,” the 61-year-old Greenburgh, New York, resident told TODAY.com. “They said, ‘That’s what people say when they have a panic attack.'”
Eventually, she felt a little better and went home to rest. But she still felt unwell the next day, so she visited the emergency room, where she learned why.
“They told me I was having a heart attack,” she says.
Summary of scary symptoms
Fitzgerald’s symptoms began on Saturday, 2020, shortly after taking photos at a graduation party.
“I was really sweaty and hot, so unbearably hot that I had to go inside and look for air conditioning,” she says. “My chest hurt and I couldn’t breathe, and it felt like my right elbow was broken. Ms. Fitzgerald thought she was going to die, and someone called 911. But paramedics said she was just… She told them she was just having a panic attack. She watched as paramedics were discouraged from going to the emergency room because of the COVID-19 pandemic because she felt “helpless.” he recalls.
“My son said, “Maybe you should go to the hospital,” Fitzgerald said.”They got tested and it was fine,” Fitzgerald said. “The paramedics said, ‘No, you might get hurt.’ It’s coronavirus. You don’t want to go to the hospital if you don’t have to.”
Again, they said Fitzgerald was having a panic attack.
“They left and said if I got worse, call me and they’d come back and take me to the hospital,” she says. “I stopped throwing up. I still had chest pain, but my fever had gone down.”
Mr. Fitzgerald returned home and remained in bed until Monday.
“I still felt terrible,” she says. “So I went to the ER.”
There she learned that she had suffered a heart attack. The next day, they placed her two stents to widen her arteries.
After returning home, I began to feel pain in my lower right abdomen. “She called her cardiologist and she said, ‘She’s having a stroke,’ and she started vomiting again,” she recalled.
Doctors asked her to return to the hospital, where she underwent tests.
“It turns out I had a blood clot in my kidney from either the heart attack or the stent placement,” she says. “She ended up spending another five days in the hospital receiving a heparin (anticoagulant) drip.”
Ms. Fitzgerald took a leave of absence from her job as an assistant district attorney. She tried to return to her job, but she had another heart attack and ultimately required further treatment to keep her blood vessels open and prevent further heart attacks. . She was on disability leave for a year.
“There are still two blocked arteries that cannot be repaired,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald has had three heart attacks in total, one in 2020 and two in early 2021. It remains to be seen whether the delays in her treatment experienced during her first heart attack led to the complications she experienced. Still, she gets furious when she gets fired.
“I’m very angry about it. I’m very emotional because I felt like no one was on my side. I felt like the only person who had my back and spoke up was my 18-year-old son. But the paramedics silenced him,” she says. “If I were a man complaining of chest pain and he had those symptoms, he would definitely have been admitted to the hospital.”
woman and heart attack
Heart attacks are becoming more common in women, TODAY.com previously reported.
“Women and men generally have the same symptoms of a heart attack, (but) women may have more symptoms and their symptoms may be explained differently,” says Sarah, a cardiologist at New York University Langone Heart Hospital. said Dr. Harmony Reynolds, director of the Ross Souter Women’s Cardiovascular Center. Her research at New York University Grossman School of Medicine told TODAY.com.
According to Reynolds, symptoms of a heart attack include:
- chest pain
- shortness of breath
- nausea
- sweating
- an uneasy feeling that something is wrong
- extreme fatigue
“Chest pain doesn’t necessarily have to be painful; it can be discomfort or a feeling that something is wrong with your chest,” says Reynolds. “As cardiologists, when we think about chest discomfort, we’re really thinking about everything from the jawline and teeth to the neck, shoulders, arms, back, and the upper stomach.”
Reynolds studied how gender and race influence the care people receive when they go to the emergency room with chest pain. In a study published in American Heart Association Journalfound that women and people of color waited longer for treatment.
“Some patients may have chest pain and be told it’s not a big deal because of patient demographics, especially women, younger patients, and people of color,” says Dr. Reynolds. “All these people have been waiting longer.”
She tells her patients to speak up when they go to the hospital complaining of chest pain.
“They have to come in and say, ‘I think I’m having a heart attack,'” Reynolds said. “Even if it’s clearly not a heart attack, we need to get your concerns addressed.”
Delaying treatment can cause more damage to the heart.
“The longer you wait, the less chance you have of saving the muscles that are at risk,” she says. “It is very important to get immediate attention.”
Some people may find it scary to say they’re having a heart attack, especially if they’re not. Reynolds hopes they can overcome that fear and advocate for themselves.
“They’re afraid that they’re going to embarrass someone, that they’re going to be embarrassed if they’re wrong. That should never happen,” she says. “We know that not everyone who comes to the emergency room has what they thought they had, and that’s OK. … Come in and get tested. That is important.”
Improved health
Fitzgerald said he was surprised that he had had three heart attacks. She ate a fairly healthy diet and led an active lifestyle, taking regular Pilates and spin classes. She saw her doctor every year for tests such as blood tests and regular blood pressure measurements, which usually came back to normal.
“Everything feels right,” she says. “But somehow it was still missed.”
After the heart attack, Fitzgerald attended cardiac rehabilitation and modified his diet. She also took a less stressful job to cope with her changing health.
“I started paying more attention to my stress levels, which I didn’t pay attention to before,” she says. “I feel more at ease. I enjoy every day and I’m lucky to be alive.”
She hopes her story lets people know how serious chest pain is and that immediate medical attention is needed.
“Everyone needs to know…these are the classic symptoms when a woman has a heart attack,” she says. “Heart disease is so prevalent among women, but because no one knows about it, women don’t get the same treatment. You wouldn’t even think about a woman having a heart attack.”
