Hello there.
My father died from MI. I was with him and I've been reading a lot about what happens when you have one but I couldn't find anything similar, I read that when people have that they generally feel a chest/arm pain and lay/fall on the floor. In the case of a sudden cardiac arrest, heart and lungs stop (they can't function without the heart), but when the heart doesn't stop sometimes the person gasps.
Here's what happened to him, and I've tried to Google each of these points exhaustively but couldn't find anything:
1- He was not feeling well, but it was something minor so he was going to take an aspirin.
2- He collapsed on the floor, but his muscles were 'stiff' for the first seconds (I guess about 15)
3- I've called him and put him in a 'sitting' position, he started to exhale and inhale a few times and in a very intermittent pattern (not like gasping), I noticed he had a lot of saliva/mucus. I though he was coming back since he even moved his eyes.
4- I noticed his tongue was blocking his throat and at this point I started CPR. I've tried to unblock his throat but the tongue would go back. I noticed his pupils were dilated. I've started to take him out of the house and unfortunately his head hit the floor when I laid him.
5- I've tried to feel his pulse and hear his heart but couldn't. I noticed however a big bump where he hit the head before. I was doing mouth-to-mouth and he would exhale the air spontaneously for some minutes. Professional medical care happened about 30 min after this point. The medics said he was already dead.
Here are the questions I have regarding each point:
2- Is it normal to have muscles stiff like that? Especially his arms were very rigid pointing to the ceiling. I could only find similar manifestations in cases of drowning and knockouts.
3- Was he (probably) conscious at this point? When he became 'relaxed', did he lost consciousness?
5- Doesn't developing a head bump suggest blood circulation? If so, is it safe to assume he had circulation, even if low, at least for some seconds after hitting the head?
Thank you very much for your replies.