Eli5: what is the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest?
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* “Heart attack” is a colloquial term that covers any kind of sudden heart issue. It’s not a precise medical term.
* Cardiac arrest is specifically when the heart *stops beating normally*, stops pumping blood, either just stops completely or gets stuck in a fluttering, ineffective contraction pattern (fibrillation). It can be caused by a variety of factors, from blood loss to bullet holes, electical shock, severe electrolyte imbalance, or like in a certain football player’s case, a blow to the chest in just the right spot at just the wrong time.
Something like a myocardial infarction, where the arteries feeding the heart muscle get blocked, would still be a “heart attack”, in fact it’s usually what people have in mind when they use the term. The chest-clutching pain is because your heart muscle is trying like hell to keep doing its job even as it’s dying due to a failing blood supply.
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