You will probably die, is the short answer. My daughter, 47 had a heart attack March 2024. Hers wasn’t from Cholesterol it was called a SCAD, Spontaneous Coronary Artery Disection, where an artery of the heart bursts.

It’s caused by stress, physical, or emotional, so even someone who goes to the gym can have one if they lift heavy weights. If someone says to you, you need less stress in your life, it’s going to kill you, listen..it just may.

Luckily my daughters SCAD was in an artery at the bottom of the heart so healed itself, but she’s been left with AF, Atrial Fibrillation for which she’s on med’s. She went into that hospital on 2 tablets and came out on about 13, she was devastated. I’m in the same boat, though I haven’t had a heart attack, I have severe Pulmonary hypertension, SVT and AF, and am on about 29 tablets daily, but I’m grateful the expertise and medication is there, so I LISTEN, and do EVERYTHING my Drs tell me.

In 2000 I was told I had 2 yrs to live. I’ve celebrated 25years diagnosed this week, and I work hard to stay alive.

Any chest pain go to the bloody Dr or hospital, so what if it turns out to be indigestion, better safe than sorry. Makes a poor epitaph “but he thought it was reflux”.

Not go to the hospital? What happens is… at some definite point, you reach a thing called “too late”.

I was 20 minutes away from “too late”.

That day:

I too was at a point where I didn’t know what to do, but I decided to leave work early because I didn’t feel right. I thought I was just nauseated. But I drove the 25 minutes home.

Soon after getting home I was dry heaving at the toilet and arms started aching. I didn’t know what to do. Finally I decided to call a nurse and was discussing my symptoms with the nurse on the phone.

At some point after that I decided to drive to the little hospital nearby… 3 miles away. It was night. I was losing control of my body and squealed to a stop on the sidewalk right at the front door, and stumbled in asking for help.

When I got there, they didn’t have the right equipment and they decided I needed to go to the big hospital.

Then they decided to call a helicopter instead of an ambulance. As soon as I got there on the chopper, they were ready to operate. I made it with 20 minutes to spare. If that operation started 20 minutes later, it would have been too late for me.

If any of those many decisions earlier had been made differently, and any of them or a combination of them, had lost me those 20 minutes, I wouldn’t be writing this right now. I was 59. Now I’m 62, and always nervous about the next one that will very likely hit me at some point. And that next time, I might not have those 20 minutes to spare. But if it happened today… at least I gained these past three years that I wouldn’t have experienced. I would never have met either of the two grandchildren that have been born in these past three years. But also, if it happened today, I’ll know not to waste a single second deciding to make decisions.

So… what I wrote above tells you exactly what would happen if you have a heart attack and don’t go to the hospital.