My sister was 50 years old. Two weeks ago she got up and had a good day. By 7:00 pm at dinner she experienced pain in her chest. As another one of my sisters had a heart attack three months earlier as well as my mom one year earlier she did not ignore the pain and called EMS. They came gave her an EKG and found she was not having a heart attack and left.
By 8:00pm the pain would not subside and called EMS back out. They took her to the hospital and gave her a blood test and another EKG. They said it was severe indigestion and treated her with Pepcid AC and Demerol. When the pain still did not go away they took another EKG and did blood work which came back fine. They continued with their theory of severe indigestion. They continued to treat her with morphine to help the pain. Nothing stopped the pain and finally at 1:30 am gave her a CT scan which revealed she had a leak in her aorta. My sister died.
I believe even though she informed the hospital staff of her family history of heart disease and her high blood pressure they never looked at her as a candidate for a heart attack as she was only 50, not overweight. I urge all people and women specifically not to accept what a doctor may tell them and demand a CT scan when pain does not diminish indigestion should have been eliminated and not have persisted for over 5 hours after being treated.
My sister should not have died, she should not have sat in an emergency room and waited to die because she was led to believe it was only indigestion. We all need to be educated and assertive regarding our health and not feel because we are in a hospital we are safe.