Whenever someone famous falls to the ground, clutching their chest, it’s almost always reported that they’ve suffered a heart attack.

In fact, they may have had a cardiac arrest.

This is almost certainly the case when they have died within a few minutes of falling over.

On top of the shock that a loved one is so suddenly dead, there may also be confusion.

A cardiac arrest – which isn’t the same thing as a heart attack – can happen to people who didn’t know they had a heart problem. Survivors are left thinking: How can this be?

It’s important to know the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest. They’re both emergencies. They both require an immediate response.

For one thing, a heart attack victim is conscious, sweating and probably panicking. There are things you can do to help survive a heart attack, at least long enough until an ambulance arrives.

A person having a cardiac arrest, however, has essentially suffered heart death.

They may not be breathing, they may not be conscious. They are in desperate need of a quick start to bring them around.

Nine times out of 10, when a person suffers a cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, they don’t survive.

Somebody needs to step forward from a group of bystanders and at least try to save this person’s life. They can do nothing to help themselves.

By the numbers

According to the Heart Foundation, each year there are about 57,000 heart attacks and 25,000 cardiac arrests happening in Australia.

Heart attacks kill 18 Australians each day.

If treated quickly (with CPR or a defibrillator) you can survive a cardiac arrest, although currently only approximately 5 to 10 per cent of people survive.

The survival rate for a heart attack is more than 60 per cent. However, if untreated, a heart attack can lead to a cardiac arrest.

What’s a heart attack?

A heart attack, also known as a myocardial infarction, happens when blood flowing to the heart is full or partially blocked, or cut off.

This causes the heart muscle to be damaged, and can cause it to die.

This blockage is why heart attacks are commonly described as a plumbing problem.

Most heart attacks occur in people coronary artery disease. And in many cases we’ve brought this upon ourselves, following an unhealthy diet, doing little to no exercise, smoking, drinking alcohol too much and not managing stress.

The Heart Foundation advises: “The blockage in the artery can be because of a build-up of fat and cholesterol (a plaque), or sometimes it is due to a severe spasm of the artery wall that causes the artery to narrow temporarily, restricting blood flow to the heart muscle.”

Usually, the heart keeps beating during a heart attack.

Some of the most commonly experienced symptoms of a heart attack are:

• Pain and tightness in the chest
• Pain spreading to arm, jaw, neck, back
• Trouble breathing
• Coughing and/or wheezing
• Nausea
• Anxiety
• Feeling faint.

According to Healthline, if you’re alone and experience heart attack symptoms, call for an ambulance immediately. Take aspirin if you have it on hand: This is to slow the blood’s ability to clot. Then, unlock your front door and lie down near it, so paramedics can find you.

If you’re at a shopping centre, library, gym or school, ask someone to hunt down a defibrillator. Many public spaces have them.

Although this is a traumatic event, you’re often in a position to improve your chances of survival.

What is a cardiac arrest?

Where a heart attack is a plumbing problem, cardiac arrest arises from a fault in the electrical wiring of the heart.

The net result is that a person experiencing cardiac arrest tends to collapse and lose consciousness. They may stop breathing or experience difficulty breathing.

The immediate cause of sudden cardiac arrest is usually an abnormality in your heart rhythm, known as an arrhythmia. This causes the heart to beat too fast, too unevenly or just plain stop.

There are four distinct types of abnormality:

• Ventricular tachycardia. This is where the heart beats so fast that it prevents the heart from filling with blood and pumping properly
• Ventricular fibrillation, the most common cause of a cardiac arrest. As an article at The Conversation describes it, “instead of regular beats, the heart quivers or ‘fibrillates’, resembling a bag of worms, resulting in an irregular heartbeat greater than 300 beats per minute. Which is devastating
• Pulseless electrical activity. The heart muscle fails to pump effectively after electrical stimulation, leading to no pulse
• Asystole. This is the flat-lining you see in movies. This happens when there is no electrical activity in the heart.

Cardiac arrest usually develops in someone with a pre-existing heart condition, such as coronary artery disease, enlarged heart, valvular heart disease, congenital heart disease or heart attack.

In healthy people, cardiac arrest can arise from drowning, trauma, asphyxia, electrical shock and drug overdose.

What to do?

A defibrillator needs to be sourced immediately, (and again, many public spaces have them).

If one isn’t available, then a bystander needs to step up. If that person knows CPR, then great.

They need to start and keep it going until paramedics arrive.

If there is no one present who knows CPR, someone needs to have a crack at it. The simple version involves pushing hard and fast on the person’s chest. This needs to be done at about 100 to 120 pushes a minute.

There’s no time to be self-conscious or unsure. Pushing on that chest until the cavalry arrives is the person’s best and only chance for survival.