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What Happens If You Have a Heart Attack In Space?
An anonymous reader sends this story about medical research in zero-gravity environments. Many earth-based treatments need to be adapted for use in space, and anatomical behaviors can change in subtle and unpredictable ways as well. This research aims to protect astronauts and future generations of space-goers from conditions that are easily treatable on the ground.
The ultrasound machine the students are testing would be well suited for space missions. It is light and compact, requires very little medical training to use, and the probe can stay in the body for 72 hours at a time. But the technology has only ever been used on Earth, and no one knows whether it would function correctly in zero gravity. The most significant concern is that microgravity will cause the probe to drift out of position. The team's mentor, cardiac surgeon and space medicine specialist Peter Lee, tells me that an ultrasound probe that sits in the esophagus is an ideal diagnostic tool for extended spaceflights. "If an astronaut far from Earth were to have a cardiovascular event, or for some reason became incapacitated and had to be on a ventilator, there's no imaging currently available [in space] that provides continuous images of the heart," he says. "You can use [external] ultrasound, but the technician has to be there the whole time to hold it on the chest."
You've got yourself a serious set of problems any number of which will kill you, including the heart attack.
Beware of the Leopard.
I'm thinking first world problems here.
Find the pause button on your forks folks.
If, after going through space flight qualification screening, you still have a heart attack - you would have died on the ground anyways. Count it as the last checkmark on your bucket list.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
You die.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
no one can hear you scream "I'm having a heart attack!" Right now, you'd probably die if it was severe enough. Honestly, I think the higher risk would be from a stroke; zero-g might cause random blood clots to dislodge. The article doesn't mention this device actually getting deployed yet; their still testing it on the Vomit Comet. After what our guys did during Apollo 18 though, I'll put money down on them fabricating some type of defibrillator from the ISS itself. Since your in free-fall zero G, you might get lucky and have a longer time period since your heart doesn't need to pump nearly as hard; or that might screw up your internals even more! As Dennis Leary said "we just don't know". We probably should be inducing heart attacks in mice up there to see what happens.
I kinda find it hard to believe that NO ONE has sent a single defibrillator up there by now, just from a risk-assessment standpoint. Even though we send all our astronauts through rigorous health checks pre-flight, some of our astronauts are pushing 65-70. We've sent up student projects, a small defib doesn't weigh much. I have a feeling that a heart attack victim would fare well in a Soyuz emergency landing, if they even could in a rapid enough time frame.
Would there be any substantial anatomical issues presented by cracking the subject open and implanting a failover heart (maybe a pediatric one, to save weight, and since it's not the base-load heart or anything) if you are so worried about the primary one conking out?
I can see that transporting an entire failover astronaut, and getting him to swiftly and effectively take over the tasks abandoned by his dying comrade, might present payload capacity and psychological issues; but if it's just an extra heart and nobody dies, those should be substantially mitigated...
The first chest compression might work a bit, but then you go flying across the room. The shock from hitting the bulkhead might provide another stimulation to the heart, but after that you'd probably just roll up into a ball or something and drift around a bit. Of course none of the other astro/cosmo/($silly_name_for_each_country)nauts would be so foolish as to do it that way, so I don't know why I mentioned it... maybe because it seemed funny at that particular instant.
Of course they'd pin you to the wall first, then do chest compression. It might work.
Then you'd be dead weight for the rest of the mission, even though you're alive.
Of course I'm assuming a lot here. I assumed that you meant "in space, inside a spacecraft or station". If you meant just "in space", then you'd probably just die, and maybe be just a bit happy that the heart attack happened before all the other stuff that happens when you're in space without protection.
Of course you could have meant "in space in a space suit during an EVA" in which case the answer goes back to "just die" since there's probably no practical way for your fellow $silly_name_for_each_country"naut" to perform any kind of CPR.
Of cource it's all pure speculation because space agencies do all kinds of physical tests BEFORE SENDING PEOPLE UP for this very reason. At some point of course, they'll lower their standards for money so some old guy with a weak heart can go up, or space travel might become common enough and then we'll see the first heart attack in space. It will probably end up as described above.
Finally just to be a bit pedantic, I know all heart attacks are not killers that knock you out. Some are just pain and weakness with no loss of consciousness. They'd give you an aspirin for that and treat you when you get down. Duh. The intent here is mostly to be Funny.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
What Happens If You Shit Your Pants in Space?
If I were going into space, I'd like to have an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator, which is also connected to diaphragm/chest muscles to force breathing.
There are too many failure modes where death can happen during repressurization, and I'd like my body to have some help to get restarted for a few minutes.
"You can use [external] ultrasound, but the technician has to be there the whole time to hold it on the chest."
Use a strap.
Why wasn't that the follow-up question?
From Wikipedia on James Irwin :
The astronauts' physiological vital signs were being monitored back on Earth, and the Flight surgeons noticed some irregularities in Irwin's heart rhythms.[9] Irwin's heart had developed bigeminy.[10] Dr. Charles Berry stated to Chris Kraft, deputy director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC) at the time: "It's serious, [i]f he were on Earth. I'd have him in ICU being treated for a heart attack."[10] Endeavour's cabin atmosphere was 100% oxygen when in space, so it was decided that he was in no serious danger by Dr. Charles Berry.[10] Specifically, "In truth,...he's in an ICU. He's getting one hundred percent oxygen, he's being continuously monitored, and best of all, he's in zero g. Whatever strain his heart is under, well, we can't do better than zero g."
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
In the NASA Mercury Days the astronauts did have a "wire up the Kazoo!" meaning anus.
Not a happy thing this.
A modified Heimlich Maneuver for CPR could probably be used in space in an emergency. That way, at least both of you would stay relatively still.
At this stage of the game it would probably make more sense to limit space travel to those with the lowest risk factors rather than waste money on treatment. First and foremost, research today should be 100% geared to how to successfully and consistently move humans from this planet to another. Treatments for the less than healthy can wait until that is accomplished.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Funny thing is now we would ignore it. We used to get excited about bigeminy and did all sorts of dangerous, useless things. Now it's just used to scare medical students.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There are already tons of things that can kill you on the ground. Medical professionals should focus on those, rather than the tiny fraction of human beings who will ever have a chance to experience space travel.
"In Space ... Your Die."
Looks like some intern at the White House is getting a "cigar" from Obama.
Well well, is the intern a "he" a "she" or "it" ?
Does Obama ... Care ?
Is Holdren worried about "Population" ?
Can the EPA really smell CO2 ?
?
:)
Where would they put your corpse?
I'm a doctor, not a theorist.
PlanetVulkan.com
Velcro.
Could they not just sticky-tape the probe on the outside somewhere?
I have never given that much thought, but why wouldn't they fit them with a wearable defibrillator? That would at least help with V-tach and V-Fib situations. Though I'm not sure those operate in zero gravity either.
[...]there's no imaging currently available [in space] that provides continuous images of the heart
Actually, there's no imaging currently available on earth that provides continuous images of the heart. No one on Earth with a heart attack has continuous echocardiogram (ultrasound) imaging done throughout their stay on Earth. Electrocardiogram leads (measuring the electrical activity of the heart) work just as well in space as on Earth and have been used for decades.
Also, an ultrasound probe in the esophagus for any extended period of time is going to cause continuous pressure upon the walls of the esophagus, causing ulcerations and potentially perforation.
Was the guy interviewed even a medical doctor?
Q: What happens when you take a dump in your pants at the bottom of the ocean ?
I tested free fall on my cat scanner for 5 seconds and it's now completely non-functional. Nearly free fall I should say, a little net gravitational force on it near the 5 second mark due to air resistance.
Another problem with the simply ejecting a body into space is that of collisions. It isn't something that has any kind of propellant. Explosively decompressing an airlock isn't going to give it all that much of a velocity. That icy 100kg body is going to be wiping around earth at 17,000km/h, and would do all kinds of damage to anything it comes in contact with. In addition, I would imagine that doing so might also require course corrections, equal and opposite reaction and all of that. For any kind of duration, likely you could just strap the body to the outside until you can bring it back to earth. Then again not sure how great that is for moral. Though to be honest, I would be bet there is likely parts of the space station that enclosed, but either open to vacuum or unheated, like for science experiments etc... which might be simpler to use as a makeshift morgue. Has there ever been any deaths in space? It is likely pretty rare, but I am sure there is a procedure for it, just like everything else.