FAITH HARRISON had just won a hockey match, but moments later, she felt a sense of “impending doom”.
What she didn’t know was that she had just suffered a heart attack.
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Aged just 22 and fit and active, she doesn’t fit the bill of a typical victim.
But the incident, on January 5 this year, would change the course of her life forever — along with the 32,000 other women admitted to hospital with a heart attack every year, according to Heart Research UK.
The fitness coach, from Little Minsterley, Shrops, tells Sun Health: “After the game I began feeling unusually stiff, cold and agitated. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
“About 30 minutes into my drive home, out of nowhere, I felt an intense pressure in the centre of my chest — like an elephant was sitting on me.
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Dark cloud closing in
“My left arm became numb, tingly, and painful.
“Alarmed, I pulled over into a layby. That’s when I experienced a terrifying sense of impending doom — something I had heard about but never truly understood until that moment.
“It felt like a dark cloud closing in on me, accompanied by an overwhelming thought that I was going to die.”
Faith got back in the car and drove for an hour to her parents’ house where she deteriorated, vomiting uncontrollably, rolling around, screaming in pain.
Her dad called 999, as Faith recalls: “I was convinced I was having a heart attack.
“The person on the phone, however, dismissed it as a panic attack, likely because of my age, gender, and fitness level.
“Chest pain, vomiting, and tingling in both arms — and they still didn’t think it was serious.”
Faith was told to take herself to A&E “within the next hour” and when she arrived, medics discovered she had suffered a “widowmaker” heart attack.
Studies suggest only 12 per cent of people survive this type of heart attack — when the biggest artery to the organ is blocked — outside of hospital.
Faith, an ambassador for the British Heart Foundation, says: “I was denied proper medical care for nearly seven hours.
“I now live with heart failure due to severe damage to my left ventricle and dead heart tissue that will never heal.”
Faith has been diagnosed with a hole in her heart, and has been told she may one day need a heart transplant. As a result, and her medication, she cannot have children.
It is a major threat to men’s health, hence the perception it is a ‘men’s disease’
Elinor Fowler
Heart attacks can affect anybody, but last week, British heart experts said women in the UK are dying “unnecessarily” from heart disease — the leading cause of heart attack — because of the misconception that it is a “man’s disease”.
Lead author, Professor Vijay Kunadian, said databases are showing “year after year” that women are being under-treated and “unfortunately that leads to higher death rates”.
Heart disease is a broad term that includes conditions such as angina, heart failure, arrhythmias and coronary heart disease, the main cause of heart attacks.
CHD is the biggest killer worldwide in both men and women, according to the BHF.
In the UK, it kills more than 23,000 women every year, double the amount of breast cancer deaths, and 45,000 men.
“It is a major threat to men’s health, hence the perception it is a ‘men’s disease’,” says Elinor Fowler, research information officer at Heart Research UK.
“This means that even when women present with classic symptoms, it is sometimes not perceived as a heart problem.
“The misdiagnoses given to women with symptoms of heart problems will vary.
“These misdiagnoses mean women are much less likely to receive the life-saving care they need, as quickly as they need it.
“It is crucial to remember it doesn’t just impact men and is important everyone understands the risks and knows how to look after their heart,” she adds.
Your risk of a heart attack is increased by high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and being overweight. Poor habits, such as diet, physical inactivity, smoking and drinking alcohol also contribute.
I’m not overweight, I don’t smoke, if I have a drink it’s a white wine and soda, I do moderate exercise
Faith Harrison
But when Sarah McCay Tams, 50, suffered a heart attack out of the blue, it was not her high blood pressure that was blamed, but actually stress at work.
The freelance writer from Barton-under-Needwood, Staffs, says: “One morning in August 2023, I was making the bed and I felt a tightness across my collarbone, almost like there was like a vice-like grip on it.
“But it wasn’t like excruciating pain. It was just a really weird, uncomfortable sensation. It felt ominous.
“Then I started getting shooting pains down my right arm that felt like pins and needles.”
Sarah went downstairs and her husband of eight years, Rob, said she looked pale.
Her symptoms warranted calling 999 — but Sarah said this felt like an “overreaction”, so they called NHS 111 and the team sent an ambulance.
Though Sarah says an initial ECG seemed “fairly OK”, blood tests revealed she had suffered a minor heart attack.
She says: “They kept me in a cardiac ward overnight and everyone was about 20 years older than me.
“I’m not overweight, I don’t smoke, if I have a drink it’s a white wine and soda, I do moderate exercise.
“I wasn’t your typical victim.”
Sarah had managed high blood pressure for 20 years but an angiogram showed “a clean heart, no blockages”.
Extremely thankful
Sarah, who now works part- time, says: “I was working quite hard at the time, staying at the computer for longer than I should have done, and not putting myself first.
“I’m extremely thankful because I think, especially with women, it’s so easy for us to think, ‘we’ll just carry on and do what we need to do’ in terms of the work, childcare or the housework.
“If I didn’t have high blood pressure I might have ignored it and felt OK the following day, but then had the same thing happen again.”
The NHS Health Check, which people over 40 are invited to every five years, can check for conditions that raise the odds of heart and circulatory conditions.
Menopause, diabetes and pre-eclampsia in pregnancy are risk factors that exclusively affect women.
At such a young age, Faith is determined not to let her heart attack define her.
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She hosts a podcast, Shut The Front Door, and founded Heart and Harmony Wellness to educate women about heart health and beneficial lifestyle habits.
She says: “I decided I couldn’t — and shouldn’t — live my life in fear or anxiety.”
