Cardiologist who had heart attack warns people to not 'make same mistake' over little-known warning sign
A cardiologist who suffered a heart attack has urged people to be wary of the symptoms after admitting he was in a 'state of denial' over his.
The irony of Dr William Wilson suffering from this medical emergency despite his line of work is not lost on anyone... but especially him.
So much so, the medic's first thought when he realised what was happening was: "This can't be happening to me, I'm a cardiologist."
Despite having decades of experience and a thorough knowledge of the organ responsible for pumping blood around our bodies, even he struggled to accept that a heart attack was the source of his strange symptoms.
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The doctor, who practices at Parkview Health in the US state of Indiana, was 63-years-old at the time and did not smoke, had a normal body weight and enjoyed regular exercise.
He also did not have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, so he thought he was on top form - and the only thing which put him at risk of a heart attack was the fact that his father had previously had one, as well as a stroke.
But as far as Dr Wilson was concerned, he was a pillar of health, so he didn't think twice about agreeing to join his wife for a workout in January 2018.
The cardiologist said he had been 'feeling great' until he started 'doing his usual workout', which began with him climbing onto the stair master.
Speaking of the strange sensation that overwhelmed his chest in a video for ParkviewHealth, Dr Wilson said: "It didn’t just hit me, boom, it was discomfort - and not a sharp discomfort.
"It was an uncomfortable pressing discomfort, which you’d think I’d know, as this is what I do [in my job]...and of course, I did. But not for about 30 or 60 seconds. For the amount of exercise I was doing, I was dripping in sweat.
"I was in denial. I was trying to talk myself out of this and say, 'This isn't happening to me, this can't be happening to me'.
"I mean, I'm a cardiologist. This doesn't happen to cardiologists!"
Dr Wilson said he was also engulfed by an 'overwhelming sense of doom', before he began to experience another heart attack symptom not a lot of people know about.
"It's very common when people are having a heart attack, that they have to go to the bathroom really bad," the cardiologist said. "It's part of the whole nervous system thing with a heart attack that's activated.
"And so sure enough I had to go to the bathroom at the gym...and I prayed."
After reemerging from the bathroom, Dr Wilson recalled how he found his wife and informed her that he was having a heart attack, before she then promptly contacted his colleagues at the hospital to relay the news.
He joked that his work pals were in 'as much amazement as he was', laughing: "I'm not probably the person that they expected to have a heart attack.
"The key for treating a heart attack is getting to the hospital as quickly as you can. Once you’re there, the cardiology team and the hospital team will take it from there."
Dr Wilson underwent a cardiac catheterisation to find the source of the problem, which revealed he had endured a ruptured plaque that reduced blood flow to his heart muscle.
In wake of his health scare, the heart doctor urged other people to get clued up on heart attack symptoms - as if it can happen to a cardiologist, it can happen to anyone.
"The lesson here is that despite all the things we do - identify people who are very high risk - we’re not perfect, and there are heart attacks that happen in people who are relatively low risk," he told Today.com in 2022.
Olivia Burke