Heart attack risks rise during the holidays, how can you be prepared to help?
PLANO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) — DeAnna Swetland was in Plano last year to see her grandchildren when her heart suddenly stopped.
"I just remember feeling dizzy and thinking, 'Oh, no,'" Swetland said.
Her daughter downstairs heard a thump and found her.
"No pulse, you know. No breathing. Nothing," she said.
A 911 call taker helped her son-in-law perform CPR until paramedics arrived to shock her heart back into rhythm.
"I didn't feel any pain, and I didn't feel any fear. I just feel grateful," she said.
Because she survived, Swetland was able to meet her newest grandchild.
This year, she's also been reunited with the 911 call taker, the firefighter paramedics, and the staff at Baylor Scott and White who helped her.
"They helped saved my life. If it wasn't for them…," she said, raising her eyebrows.
The American Heart Association reports new research has found more people die from heart attacks in the last week of December than any other time of year. In fact, the single most common day to suffer a deadly cardiac event is Christmas Day.
There are steps you can take, though, to better prepared.
Many schools, churches, shopping malls, and offices have automated external defibrillators (AED).
"You need to know where your AED is. We're going to ask you to get the AED and come back," Plano's director of public safety communication, Susan Carr, said.
911 call takers, she said, can guide you in how to use a defibrillator or how to perform CPR.
"We want to hear the caller counting out their compressions so we can make sure they're doing it fast enough and they're doing it at the right pace," Carr said.
Swetland said she's become much more aware of AEDs.
"Whenever I'm in a public place, I'm always looking for where one is. I just want to take note," she said.
Swetland also urges people she knows to learn CPR.
She knows it can save a life because it saved hers.
