People always have the impression that heart disease only affects men. Women are less likely to have heart disease. This is definitely a common misconception. Most women are not aware that heart disease is the leading killer of women in United States and many developed countries. But, the following unexpected incident experienced by a young lady may change your mind!



Being a non-smoker and very conscious of her eating habits, an active woman who has kickboxing classes twice a week to keep fit will never imagine that she could be at risk of heart disease. But in reality, she had fatal heart attack struck on her unexpectedly.

One evening, Mary (not her real name) felt giddy and breathless after her regular kickboxing workout. She did not suspect anything else so she proceeded to the back of the studio to have a rest. She could feel tightness in her chest and before she knew it, she went into cardiac arrest which is identified by sudden loss of heartbeat and cardiac function and nor normal breathing.

Fortunately, her husband was around and he suspected it could be due to something more serious than fatigue. So, he called for ambulance without any hesitation. Mary's heart stopped on the way to hospital. The paramedics had to stop the ambulance along the road side to save her using the defibrillator. A group of cardiologists had been called in and were waiting for her at the hospital just in time to save her of heart attack.

During the emergency rescue, the cardiologists inserted one stent in the dominant vessel. Subsequently, she was transferred to another hospital for further monitoring. One month later, she was briefed by the doctors that she had to undergo another coronary stenting procedure. This time, 4 stents were inserted to unblock the other two major arteries to her heart. She joined the cardiac rehabilitation program offered by the hospital shortly after the procedure.

She knew that her father had a history of heart disease but she had never crossed her mind that she will be affected, especially at her age of 41. She thought heart disease would affect only people in their 50s or 60s. It is quite shocking!

Recalling what had happened, she felt she was very lucky because there was minimal damage to her heart muscles. If there were any delay in the rescuing process, she might not survive.