Heart Cipher

On Friday July 4th, 2008, an Illinois man died of a heart attack following his scaling of Mt. McKinley (aka Denali). The tour guides he was scaled the mountain with attempted to revive him for 45 minutes before finally giving up the attempt.

He was buried on Sunday at the summit of the mountain at 20,320 feet above sea level because of the difficulty and danger involved in bringing his body back down the mountain.

According to the Chicago Tribune…

James Nasti was an avid runner, cyclist and mountaineer who had been on an 11-year quest to climb the highest points in all 50 states.

But upon reaching his 49th high point on the 4th of July, the Naperville father of three collapsed and died on the summit of Mt. McKinley in Alaska, apparently of a heart attack…

James Nasti belonged to the Highpointers Club, whose members try to visit the highest points in 50 states. He had only White Butte, N.D., left to scale, his son said.

Nasti was a runner and cyclist who had trained for the climb up Mt. McKinley and had no known history of heart trouble, his family said.

“He had done a stress test two years ago and there was no indication of heart trouble, no family history of the disease,” his son said.

Nasti did not appear to be sick or in distress and was climbing strongly before the collapse, McLaughlin said.

“It sounds like from the guides that this was a particularly strong team as a whole and he was a strong climber. It was unexpected,” she said.

Meanwhile, in the first of a series of reports on Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment, (the MESA study), a measure of coronary calcium was shown to be better than carotid IMT for predicting CVD risk.

As the “baby boomer” generation ages and the cardiology and medical communities continue to ignore the results of dozens, if not hundreds, of studies of the predictive power of Coronary Artery Calcium scanning, we will continue to read stories about people taken down by heart attack at the pinnacle of their life and achievements.

It’s a pleasure to come across another person who has shared their heart attack story on the internet.

I see that Paul experienced different early warning symptoms than I did. But it appears that both of us had an early warning. I wrote about my experience here.

What Paul and I have in common was the fact we didn’t even consider at first that what we were experiencing could be angina or a heart attack.

I’m looking forward to reading more at Paul’s website.

(image courtesy of heart-attack-and-heart-disease.com)

I had a mild heart attack at the age of 43. For weeks prior to the event, I had been experiencing a strong burning sensation centered at the top of my sturnum when I walked a distance more than a 100 yards. I had no idea what the sensation was. That sensation, which felt more like a burn than anything else, wasn’t on any list of symptoms for heart attack that I knew.

Indeed, it wasn’t actually a sign I was having a heart attack. It was merely a sign that I had a serious problem with one or more coronary arteries.

But I ignored that sensation.

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In 2006, I was flying from from Chicago to San Francisco and sitting in an aisle seat. There was a gentleman sitting across from me who appeared to be in his late 60s or early 70s. He was sitting next a woman who I imagined and later learned was his wife.

About 30 minutes into the flight he began to stand up at his seat with one foot in the aisle. He would stand for a few minutes and then sit down again, then stand, then sit, and finally he just stood at his seat. I didn’t think too much about it at the time but certainly noticed it because it was unusual.

About an hour into the flight, he collapsed forward into the aisle passing out cold.

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