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."

Comments

Today?

[Known Nutter]

You've got yourself a serious set of problems any number of which will kill you, including the heart attack.

Re:Today?

[Travis Mansbridge]

One thing's for certain: no one can hear you scream.

huh

[msauve]

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.

Re:huh

[geekoid]

You don't know that.. Going to space may have been what set it off.

Re:huh

[Sasayaki]

It's actually not about that. It's about not having a corpse up in space.

Seriously. A dead body is a significant biohazard and in the cramped, oxygen rich, closed-system environment of a spaceship having a corpse floating around is a serious biohazard. That thing's not going to stay in one piece; it's going to rot, break up, liquefy, and all in zero gravity.

If the crew starts breathing in dead guy, they too are in a lot of trouble.

These ships don't have a morgue or any way to properly dispose of a body. Although the idea of a "burial in space" is appealing, by simply casting the body out into the void, the problem is that this has its own problems. Assuming the vehicle's crew are capable of spacewalks, and they may not be, it's an unplanned excursion which takes up a surprising amount of resources, most notably time. Sure, the body would burn up for most vehicles -- the shuttle sees a temperature of around 1500 C for 15 to 20 minutes which I'm confident would do the job -- but it's a non-trivial exercise. They can't just open the window and toss 'em out.

Then there are the side effects, on crew morale least of all (the types of people picked for these missions tend to be hardy, very pragmatic folk who understand the risks and more than intelligent enough to realise this event was completely unavoidable and they're in no danger), but to the ground crew morale (who often feel extremely protective of the crew and are often, it's said, more nervous and frightened than the actual crew themselves), and to the broader space program in general.

There's also the broader financial implications. Training astronauts is EXPENSIVE. Research on keeping them alive, especially if such research can lead to other medical breakthroughs, is money well spent. Sure, that one guy is never going to fly into space again, but the ground crew for any mission is vast and tends to include other former astronauts. If he dies up there, we lose his experience and skills set, which we've paid a lot of good money for.

Re:huh

[viperidaenz]

Shove them in a big zip-lock bag. Rot contained.
Make it opaque, so no one can see dead rotting guy.

Re:huh

[LordLimecat]

They have an airlock for a reason, dude. They can "just toss the body out the window".

All of the other problems you mention are in no way unique to astronauts; you would get the same problem in an IT field.

Re:huh

[ColdWetDog]

If you think that there isn't a file somewhere in the depths of the Manned Flight Operations Manual (or whatever idiot acronym that NASA gives it) detailing exactly what you are supposed to do with a dead body, you're crazy.

They've thought of things you haven't thought of to think of.

Death is a pretty obvious one.

Re:huh

[Threni]

If you want to make sure he's dead, chuck him out of the nearest airlock!

Re:Hm

[geekoid]

what, you mean all those obese astronauts?

Redundancy, of course!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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...

Re:Redundancy, of course!

[ColdWetDog]

Other than the fact that it has never been done, no problemo. Space is not exactly where you are supposed to do cutting edge (please excuse the pun) medical research. You have clearly never dealt with an Institutional Review Board or you wouldn't think to bring up such silly ideas.

Next, you'll want to send lawyers into space, just to see if they really need to breath oxygen.

Astronaut James Irwin had a heart attack on moon

[DanDD]

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."

Re:Astronaut James Irwin had a heart attack on moo

[ColdWetDog]

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.

Re:CPR

[istartedi]

I'm guessing that the modification would be to reach around from behind and do compression on the chest instead of below the sternum. In other words, not a Heimlich, but a way to do chest compression in zero-G without the aforementioned difficulty of maintaining stability. That's actually a pretty good idea, although it probably still doesn't solve the EVA problem. I don't think anybody can perform a Heimlich, modified or otherwise, in those bulky suits.

Re:Duh.

[oldhack]

What are you, a patent writer?

Re:Hm

[Dcnjoe60]

what, you mean all those obese astronauts?

Obesity adds to the probability that one might experience a heart attack, but the non-obese are not immune. There are approximately 720,000 heart attacks in the US each year. But one's weight is only one risk factor and not even the largest one. Autopsies on soldiers killed in Vietnam showed that many of those 18 to 20 year olds, who were in very good physical condition had 20% blockage of their coronary arteries. Believing that heart attacks only impact the obese is why so many people ignore the signs of heart problems until it is too late to do anything about it.