Symptoms Ignored Ahead of Near-Fatal ‘Widowmaker’ Heart Attack

Chris Prewitt had just finished a workout session with his personal trainer on Dec. 27, 2023, when his triceps, biceps, and chest “were all incredibly sore.” However, Prewitt, then 48, said he was not concerned about the unexpected pain because he exercised regularly, including doing cardio and CrossFit. The Avon Lake, Ohio, resident said he was often thought of as “a picture of health.”

Prewitt might not have been worried, but his personal trainer was concerned enough to bring over a sports medicine doctor at the workout facility to check him out. The doctor advised Prewitt to go to urgent care. So, Prewitt called his wife, Meredith, and she and their children came to pick him up.

On their way to urgent care, Meredith missed the exit and got off the highway. The worried wife looked over at her husband, who, by that time, was slumped over in his seat. She grabbed his hand. “It was ice cold,” Prewitt, now 49, recalled to Today.com. “My heart had stopped.”

Fortunately, Meredith noticed she was across the street from Cleveland Clinic’s Avon Hospital at the Richard E. Jacobs campus. She drove to the hospital’s emergency room, ran inside, and got the attention of healthcare workers, who pulled him out of the car and brought him into the emergency room. Prewitt was having a widowmaker heart attack. He regained consciousness about 24 hours later.

A life-threatening widowmaker happens when there is a full blockage in the left anterior descending (LAD) artery, which is the heart’s biggest artery. The LAD provides 50 percent of the heart muscle’s blood supply.

By the sound of it, a widowmaker heart attack only affects men and people assigned male at birth, according to the Cleveland Clinic. However, women and people assigned female at birth can have a widowmaker heart attack, too.

Warning Signs of a Heart Attack

A heart attack happens every 40 seconds in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). What’s more, about 805,000 people in the United States have a heart attack every year. Of these, 605,000 are a first heart attack, while the remaining heart attacks happen to people who previously had a heart attack, the CDC reports.

In young people like Prewitt, medical professionals say there might not be any symptoms warning of a widowmaker heart attack.

“About 30% of patients don’t have any previous symptoms, but they suddenly drop dead,” Dr. Emad Nukta, a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, told Today.com. “We see that mostly with the younger patients rather than the older patients, and that’s where the term of widow maker comes from.”

Some heart attacks are sudden and intense, while others start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort, according to the American Heart Association. Heart attack symptoms can come and go over several hours, and people might not think that anything is wrong.

“The worst one is the one where they really did not have symptoms, “Dr. Nukta said. “They were not aware of anything. They were exercising or working out, lifting weights or on a treadmill, and suddenly they drop dead.”

There’s also a “major misconception” that a heart attack comes with extreme pain, but that’s not always the case, according to Dr. Nukta.

“They think pain is something like real burning or severe pain,” he said. “But chest pain is really not that severe pain. It’s uneasy pressure-like pain, squeezing pain.”

Some of the warning signs of a typical heart attack include:

• Discomfort in other areas of the upper body

• Pain or discomfort in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw, or stomach

• Shortness of breath, with or without chest discomfort

• Cold sweat, nausea, or lightheadedness

When it comes to widowmaker heart attacks, people are more likely to have one if they are at risk for atherosclerosis, also known as hardening of the arteries, Dr. Nukta said. Hardening of the arteries occurs when fat, cholesterol and other substances build up in the inner lining of an artery. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or a family history of heart attack can all increase the risk of atherosclerosis.

Before having a heart attack, Prewitt said he didn’t realize his family had a history of heart problems. Prewitt knew that one grandfather had undergone two bypass surgeries, but he did not know that his other grandfather died at 49 from a widowmaker heart attack, just like the one he had.

Just as there are common heart attack warning signs, a widowmaker heart attack also has warning symptoms that include:

A heart attack also has subtle symptoms like fatigue, which Prewitt said he had about a year leading up to the widowmaker heart attack. He thought it was caused by his age and being a parent.

“I didn’t know if this is what (nearing) 50 (felt) like,” Prewitt recalled to Today.com “I’ve got two young boys who are 9 and 6, and was finding myself at the end of my workday a little tired and sometimes having to need a break before we go play baseball or kick a soccer ball around the yard.”

The lack of energy and motivation worried Prewitt enough to go to the doctor. He had blood work done three times, including a month before his heart attack. But nothing came up on his test results.

“I had no markers of any kind,” he told Today.com. My total cholesterol seemed to be OK. I had no real health issues other than being tired.”

Prewitt told People.com that he feels much better now than he did before having the heart attack.

“It’s been an amazing journey, and now that my cardiovascular system is operating like it should, I have been able to resume doing the things I am accustomed to and feel back to normal,” he said.

Prewitt said he is also “incredibly grateful” for Meredith, his children, family, friends, and the healthcare workers at Cleveland Clinic, all of whom helped save his life and help him recover. Just as other people helped him, Prewitt wants to help others by talking about his experience.

“I am hopeful that by sharing this story, I can impact even one life,” Prewitt told People.com.

Source Links:

https://www.today.com/health/men-s-health/chest-pain-fatigue-widow-maker-heart-attack-symptoms-rcna154864
https://people.com/dad-recalls-symptom-he-ignored-ahead-of-widowmaker-heart-attack-8659476
https://www.cdc.gov/heart-disease/data-research/facts-stats/index.html
https://www.heart.org/-/media/Files/Health-Topics/Heart-Attack/Heart-Attack-warning-signs-infographic.pdf