Valentine's Day is a good time to think about heart health and safety. A staggering statistic I recently came across (courtesy of OSHA) is that 13% of all workplace fatalities result from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) - when heart function ceases abruptly and without any warning. Pretty scary - not only for the employee experiencing SCA, but for those around him/her in the workplace. As an employer or safety manager, the best policy is to prepare your workplace in two ways:
- Equip your workplace with accessible Automatic External Defibrillators (AEDs). Defibrillation within three (3) minutes raises a victim's chance of survival to more than 70%. Local EMS can rarely respond that quickly.
- Train your employees in both Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and AED usage.
Another smart move is to create awareness in the workplace of SCA risk factors so that employees take control of their own heart health. Factors include:
- History of early heart disease, heart attack, or cardiac death in the family
- Unexplained fainting or near-fainting after heart palpitations
- Chest pain, shortness of breath, or fainting with exertion during heavy activity/listing
- Heart failure or heart attack
- Weak heart muscle or a low cardiac Ejection Fraction (EF) or percentage of blood pumped out of the pumping chamber during each heartbeat. Low is less than 40%
- Other cardiac risk factors, including high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, smoking, and high cholesterol
Happy Valentines Day, and love your heart!
