Heart attack patient wants to encourage others to take cardiovascular health seriously
By Justina Latimer
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WSMV) — With heart attacks are increasing among young people in their 20s and 30s, one Berry Hill man hopes his story will encourage others to take cardiovascular health seriously.
“It took a few minutes, but it finally settled in on me how close I was to dying and how serious this was,” Zachary Harris said.
February is American Heart Month. Harris said he was out for dinner one day when he felt sharp pains in his chest.
“It felt like a stabbing burning pain,” Harris said. “So, I thought maybe this is acid reflux for the first time in my life. This sucks.”
But it wasn’t. Harris said the pain stayed for a few minutes, stopped, and then continued the following day.
“Every time I would start to breathe, I could feel a little bit of kind of like a needle pricking on my ribs,” Harris said.
A feeling that pushed him to go to the emergency room.
“It just felt like a thousand short needles were starting to stick in my lungs,” Harris said.
After different tests, Dr. Jay Patel, an interventional cardiologist with Ascension Saint Thomas, later found a severe heart attack.
“He didn’t have the classic risk factors for somebody having a heart attack,” Patel said. “Being so young, didn’t smoke, wasn’t significantly overweight, or didn’t have diabetes or high blood pressure.”
Patel said less than 1% of people around Harris’ age typically have heart attacks. However, he added he’s hoping young adults in their 30’s will start taking heart health more seriously.
“The American heart association, the American Cardiology all recommend getting your cholesterol checked after the age of 30,” Patel said. “If it is normal, great because things can change every three to five years.”
“I would not recommend anybody wait around for as long as I did with the pain that they were in,” Harris said.
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