[TV] Prison Break - Massive cardiac arrest

[Arthritic Toe]

Having just made it through Prison Break season one, I need an argument settled please. Someone died of a 'massive cardiac arrest'. Cardiac arrest means that someones heart has stopped - right? How can one persons heart stop more massively than another? Googling it to try and win the argument proved fruitless - it seems that people are dropping dead left, right and centre of 'massive cardiac arrests'. Come on - back me up here.

 

[bhafc99]

Oh boy, if that’s your biggest problem with Prison Break, just wait to the later seasons…

 

[jcdenton08]

Oh boy, if that’s your biggest problem with Prison Break, just wait to the later seasons…

Had to give up on it, when it went all X-Files. Now I LOVE TXF but Prison Break completely jumped the shark long before the end. Utter garbage

First few seasons were decent though.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

I do believe we have a specialist in our midst.
One who very (too?) regularly posts on most threads - he'll be along soon enough ...

 

[Muzzman]

The first season was excellent, but when the obvious conclusion happened at the end, every season after that was awful.

 

[Withdean South Stand]

The first season was excellent, but when the obvious conclusion happened at the end, every season after that was awful.

I really enjoyed the start of season 2 as well as the continuation of the first. But it got more and more silly and then when the guard was hailed some kind of unsung hero at the point of his death was absolutely ridiculous and I never moved past it. It was just daft.

 

[Muzzman]

I really enjoyed the start of season 2 as well as the continuation of the first. But it got more and more silly and then when the guard was hailed some kind of unsung hero at the point of his death was absolutely ridiculous and I never moved past it. It was just daft.

Yes. This precisely. I also enjoyed the start of Season 2, and then got turned off by the guard turning into a good guy out of the blue.

 

[MattBackHome]

Still a big fan of Theodore Bagwell

 

[hart's shirt]

Massive.

 

[5Ways Gull]

Having just made it through Prison Break season one, I need an argument settled please. Someone died of a 'massive cardiac arrest'. Cardiac arrest means that someones heart has stopped - right? How can one persons heart stop more massively than another? Googling it to try and win the argument proved fruitless - it seems that people are dropping dead left, right and centre of 'massive cardiac arrests'. Come on - back me up here.

They only ever happen in Sheffield.

 

[Withdean South Stand]

In terms of the varying degrees of a cardiac arrest, presumably massive refers to be totally non-survivable? There are plenty of cardiac arrests which are survivable, with the right conditions. I presume that there is/are some variations which are absolutely fatal in all cases? Like Raphael Dwamena's unfortunate end, compared to Tom Lockyer for example.

 

[brighton terra]

I’m one of the limited number of people who have survived a sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), but I’m by no means an expert on the subject. I don’t remember anything about the event itself or the following week; I was in an induced coma.

However, what I do know is that there are a variety of causes and types of cardiac arrest; with varying degrees of trauma attached to each of them. Taking me as an example, I suffered a number of seizures and a pulmonary embolism associated with the SCA. I received repeated CPR at home, over the course of a couple of hours and I’m massively indebted to my partner and the 3 ambulance crews (and air ambulance crew) that fought so hard to save my life!

As a result, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to describe a cardiac arrest as ‘massive’, if you’re taking into account the lead up and associated complications.

Avid Albion fan reunited with paramedics who saved his life

An avid Albion fan from Worthing was reunited with the paramedics who saved his life.

www.theargus.co.uk

 

[um bongo molongo]

The first season was excellent, but when the obvious conclusion happened at the end, every season after that was awful.

There was an obvious limitation in extending it beyond one season! See also: Money Heist

 

[METALMICKY]

Oh boy, if that’s your biggest problem with Prison Break, just wait to the later seasons…

This! Early stuff was great then it went all pear

 

[DJ NOBO]

Prison Break Season 1, Lost early seasons, Peep Show and 24.
That was the golden age of television.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Drinking white wine could reduce risk of cardiac arrest

 

[GT49er]

Drinking white wine could reduce risk of cardiac arrest

View attachment 200803

Quick, someone pour me a bucketful!

 

[Chicken Run]

I believe the difference between a Massive Cardiac arrest and a normal one is a Massive Cardiac Arrest normally can only take place in the Hillsborough home end and sometimes various Div 1 away ends once or maybe twice a year from this August

 

[Albion my Albion]

Quick, someone pour me a bucketful!

Will this do?

Cardiac arrest prevented!!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Having just made it through Prison Break season one, I need an argument settled please. Someone died of a 'massive cardiac arrest'. Cardiac arrest means that someones heart has stopped - right? How can one persons heart stop more massively than another? Googling it to try and win the argument proved fruitless - it seems that people are dropping dead left, right and centre of 'massive cardiac arrests'. Come on - back me up here.

This is my research area.
Terminology around heart attacks isn't all that great in medicine itself.
Once lay people get hold.....

Most cardiac 'arrests' are no such thing. Yes, there is mechanical 'arrest' (no cardiac output) but electrically the heart is fibrillating.
Instead of a wave of depolarization passing smoothly across the ventricles, causing the heart beat,
the electrical wave front splits into up to ten small loops that whizz around randomly and make the heart 'contract' like a bag of worms.
There is no cardiac output. After 10 seconds you faint. After several minutes of this you yet irreversibly brain damage and death.
Defibrillation with a defibrillator or chest thump is required, but you have little time.

The underlying cause is almost always coronary artery disease.
This is atherosclerosis (which takes decades to develop) with acute thrombosis (the atherosclerotic plaque can split triggering a thrombus, because the blood sees the plaque fissure as if it is a cut) that can develop in seconds and completely block a main coronary artery (usually the LAD).

Within 5 minutes the regional (local) lack of coronary flow in part of the ventricle causes local electrical disturbance and the arrhythmia known as ventricular fibrillation. You can go from apparently well to dead in minutes, hence the concept of sudden cardiac death.

The whole process is the 'heart attack'.

If the coronary atheroma/thrombus are located near the vessel origin the involved region of the ventricle is large.
That's where the 'massive' comes from.
Because a fibrillating heart does not pump blood it rather lazily called 'arrest'.

The correct term would be a massive region of acute myocardial ischaemia leading to lethal ventricular fibrillation, aka sudden cardiac death.

I was told my dad died of a 'massive myocardial infarct'.

Well, infarction is cell death and this only happens after hours of sustained ischaemia.
And an autopsy is not done if circumstances are not suspicious.
You can survive an MI if the region of ischaemia is small.
You may then get ischaemia further up the artery giving rise to a larger region of ischaemia, die from VF and have it attributed to 'inraction',
when it is really the acute ischaemia that did the lethal deed.
Most cardiologists are a bit hazy on this because they only see people with small MIs who survive long enough to make it to hospital.
Half of the people who die of sudden cardiac death do so from their first 'heart attack, all of this outside of hospital.

It is this mangling of terms and concepts that has slowed progress in research to prevent sudden cardiac death,
the single largest cause of death in the UK after all cancers combined.

Edit - must of missed this thread first time around because as @Shropshire Seagull intimated I would of been all over it