Word: heart
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...case of either a heart attack or cardiac arrest - a heart attack can also cause cardiac arrest - EMTs' initial response is to begin cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in order to keep blood flowing. According to the 911 tapes from Jackson's case, his physician was "pumping his chest." That physician and the EMT team that brought Jackson to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center attempted to resuscitate him for more than an hour, according to a statement issued by the hospital. Typically, however, there is only a four- to six-minute window of opportunity to revive a patient in cardiac arrest...
...heart in cardiac arrest, says Zipes, "looks like a bag of squiggly worms, totally uncoordinated, disorganized, with no effective pumping." In a normal heart, the pumping chambers beat 70 times a minute or so, while an organ in cardiac arrest can spasm anywhere from 400 to 600 times per minute. Unless a regular rhythm can be restored, brain death and ultimately death can result...
...what measures the emergency workers took to save Jackson, but if they had determined that he suffered from cardiac arrest triggered by an overdose of narcotics, they would have likely used a shot of naloxone, a drug that counteracts opioid overdose, to get the brain back online and the heart beating again, says Connie Meyer, an EMS captain in Johnson County, Kans. In cases where it's not clear whether narcotics are involved - cardiac arrest may be caused by a wide range of factors, including stress - some EMTs will use epinephrine, a shot of adrenaline that jump-starts the heart...
...autopsy could, however, rule out a heart attack. If Jackson's cardiac arrest had been triggered by a heart attack - caused by a ruptured plaque blocking blood flow to his heart - then pathologists should be able to see the occluded vessel and the fresh evidence of the clogged-up heart...
After all the speculation and rumors and bizarre events that have peppered Jackson's medical history, it may be the case that ultimately he died from the same condition that claims 440,000 other middle-aged Americans each year: heart disease. A longtime friend, Patti Austin, who duetted with the singer on "It's the Falling in Love," told CNN that Jackson rarely ate right and didn't exercise. "When you live like a hummingbird, you don't have a long life span," she said...