Teacher, student die of heart attack in Kulgam village

Kulgam: A teacher and a student from a village in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district died of cardiac arrest on Saturday.

37-year-old Mysar Maqbool from Dadipora village fell unconscious at his home last evening following which he was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead on arrival. “He died of cardiac arrest,” a medic confirmed. Maqbool was lecturer by profession at Government Higher Secondary School Qaimoh.

   

Barely an hour later, class 9th student, Sameer Ahmad Wani, 14, living in the neighbourhood, on hearing the tragic news of the lecturer, too collapsed and died on the spot.

The entire village went into shock.

Meanwhile, a girl from the nearby village Zadipura suffered a minor heart attack and was shifted to Srinagar for treatment. Her condition is said to be stable.

For past one year Kashmir is witnessing steep surge in the heart attack cases mostly among the young people without any underlying disease.

Shahid Iqbal Tak, senior consultant cardiologist at SMHS, Srinagar, on the rise in sudden cardiac deaths said the cause can be known only through proper research.

“The sudden deaths among the young are certainly due to cardiac arrests. There is no doubt about it. However, unless we have proper research the causes won’t be found,” he said.

He, however, attributed most of the cases of sudden cardiac arrests to coronary heart and muscle diseases. “If a stroke is during a particular period, like in winters, we can at least find it out as there are clear symptoms. But in the above two cases, only autopsy can find out the cause,” Dr Tak said.

He said that if smokers get heart attack, a clot is usually formed that becomes the cause of sudden death.

Dr Tak said the primary intervention was pivotal to prevent heart attacks. “Unfortunately, due to lack of resources we only focus on secondary intervention, where we only treat the patient, once he/she reaches the hospital,” he said.

Can Covid-19 be the cause of heart attacks? “It can lead to pulmonary embolism ad hence sudden deaths. However, the cause of heart attacks during pandemic need research,” Dr Tak replies.

“As Covid-19 is a new virus, not much information is available to us as to which extent it can cause damage. So it is premature to attribute sudden spike in heart attacks during the pandemic, to the virus,” he said.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

18 − four =