Eli5: what is the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest?
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Cardiac Arrest: Heart has stopped beating.
Heart Attack (“Myocardial Infarction”): The blood that nourishes the heart (and gives it oxygen) has been blocked or is otherwise not getting to the heart, and the tissue has begun to die.
If you sever someone’s spine, so all their blood is still where it should be but the signal has stopped, then the heart stops, and that’s cardiac arrest, but not a heart attack.
If you have an artery that is blocked, and so the heart is pumping but some part of it isn’t getting fed with oxygen, that’s an MI (heart attack), but not cardiac arrest.
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