My goal is not to start this week off on a negative note but this was such a well-written article, I wanted to share it. Dustin Curtis writes about how a friend in his early 20s had a heart attack:

A couple of months ago, I received a text message that hit me like a brick. It said that one of my closest friends, who is in his early twenties and in perfect health, suddenly went into cardiac arrest while running at the gym. I knew what that meant; outside of the hospital, cardiac arrest is almost universally fatal; only about 5% of people even make it to the hospital alive, and fewer than half of those survivors leave with good neurological function. I fell into my chair. Shock.

My brother-in-law, aged 39, had a heart attack last October and lived to tell about it. His and my wife’s father died of the same seven years ago. Both were deemed in perfect health by doctors just before the attack. Lucky for all of us, my brother-in-law’s wife was at home, saw him getting grayer and decided to take him to the hospital. Half way there he passed out. She drove frantically while pounding on his chest and calling the hospital who met her at the curb. He, too, went through the therapeutic hypothermia. He survived and is in good health today.