Mar 15, 2025 18:00:00

A doctor who saved a heart attack patient's life realized he was having a heart attack too

As the saying goes, '

Doctors neglect their health ,' even doctors who repeatedly advise their patients to take care of their health can be surprisingly careless about their own health. One extreme example of this was the case of an emergency physician who treated a man who had a heart attack, and realized that the patient's symptoms were similar to his own, which led him to realize that he too was having a heart attack.

Take Care of your Heart: Marking Heart Month – Timmins and District Hospital
https://tadh.com/news/take-care-of-your-heart-marking-heart-month/

Doctor Realizes He's Having a Heart Attack While Treating Heart Attack Patient : ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/doctor-realizes-hes-having-a-heart-attack-while-treating-heart-attack-patient

Chris Loreto, an emergency physician at Timmins Regional Hospital in Ontario, Canada, was trying to save the life of a man who was having a heart attack when he realized he was having a heart attack too.

In mid-2024, Loreto began to experience chest pains while running, and sometimes a burning sensation in his throat, teeth, and ears. The pain was so intense that he would often scream out loud.

Mr. Loreto had been examined by his family doctor, but he did not mention that the pain occurred during exercise, and Mr. Loreto, a veteran with 30 years of experience in the medical field, said, 'It must be acid reflux,' so his family doctor prescribed stomach medicine. However, even after taking the medicine to suppress acid reflux for several months, Mr. Loreto's chest pain did not improve at all.

Then, on the night of November 12, 2024, the pain reached its peak while Mr. Loreto was playing hockey, and the pain in his shoulder remained the next morning. However, Mr. Loreto ignored it and went to work at the hospital, where he rushed to the side of a man who had suffered a severe heart attack.

After the patient survived, Loreto spoke with his wife and discovered that the patient's symptoms were identical to his, and that they were even taking the same stomach medicine. 'His story was my story,' Loreto said.

When Loreto finally realized something was wrong and told his colleagues, they used words like 'You idiot!' to convince him to take an electrocardiogram, which revealed that his chest pains were a heart attack.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), including heart attacks, is the number one cause of death worldwide, with approximately 17.9 million people dying from the disease each year. Symptoms of a heart attack include chest discomfort (pressure, tightness, expansion, pain, burning, or heaviness) or discomfort in the upper body (neck, jaw, shoulders, arms, or back), shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, and light-headedness. Women can also have a heart attack without feeling chest pressure, and may experience shortness of breath, pressure or pain in the lower chest or upper abdomen, dizziness, light-headedness, fainting, pressure in the upper back, and extreme fatigue.

When Loreto met the patient's wife at a local cardiac center, she told him, 'Thank you for saving my husband's life,' to which he replied, 'No, thank you for saving my life.'

When he started treatment, Loreto told his colleagues, 'Please don't take me off this weekend's shift,' but about three months later, in February 2025, he was still on sick leave. After receiving a procedure to insert a medical device called a stent to expand his arteries at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Loreto is undergoing rehabilitation to regain his original health.

Loreto acknowledged that she had neglected herself compared to caring for her patients, and that there was a part of her that thought, 'I'm fine.' 'We're very good at taking care of others, but we're not very good at taking care of ourselves,' she said.