Happy Heart Health Month!

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! February is American Heart Month; it also has an emphasis on women’s heart health with Go Red for Women. That’s symbolized by wearing red as often as you can during February. I can’t think of a better day to do that than today—Valentine’s Day. There’s a lot that we can do for our hearts with diet, exercise, and more, but that’s not what this memo is about. It’s about responding to a challenge.

Whether you’re a football fan or not, you’ve probably heard about Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety who had a cardiac arrest on the field in January. He has recovered and is doing well, and he hopes to get back to playing football. But he’s alive only because the immediate training staff responded by doing CPR on the field.

Damar is part of American Heart Month with #3forHeart^TM CPR Challenge. The first part, and probably most important, is to learn how to do CPR in 60 seconds; follow the link to watch the video. Even though I’ve taught CPR, it was a good refresher and, wow, it’s a lot simpler than it used to be. Take a minute today to be prepared in case your Valentine or anyone else has a problem.

There is another part to this story about another Buffalo Bill who had a cardiac arrest. I’ll tell you about her on Saturday.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet

Reference: https://www.heart.org/en/damar-hamlins-3-for-heart-cpr-challenge