Timmins doctor treating patient for heart attack has a heart attack

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An emergency room physician at the Timmins and District Hospital in Timmins, Ont., had an “aha” moment while helping a man who was suffering from a massive heart attack. It turned out the doctor had the same condition as the patient.

The incident happened last November, but TADH shared the news this month in a press release to help publicize February being heart month. The Public Health Agency of Canada says this is a time to raise awareness about the importance of cardiovascular health, and to focus on what we can do to improve our heart health.

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Dr. Chris Loreto said he had been experiencing chest pain and other symptoms for several months while running. It got so bad he would sometimes scream to work through the pain. Loreto had reached out to his own family doctor, suggesting he had acid reflux, but the prescribed medication wasn’t helping.

Then, on the night of Nov. 12, while playing hockey, the pain came and stayed, lingering in his shoulders. The next morning, Loreto was at work and helped a man who had just had a heart attack. He then spoke to the man’s wife and learned that he was on the same medication for acid reflux.

“His story was my story,” Loreto said afterwards.

But he still wasn’t convinced. Colleagues coerced him — reluctantly — into letting them do bloodwork and an EKG, which confirmed that he too was having a heart attack. (An EKG or electrocardiogram records electrical signals in the heart and can help diagnose heart attacks and irregular heartbeats.)

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After being treated in Timmins, Loreto and his patient were both transferred to Health Sciences North in Sudbury, the cardiac referral centre for the region. They ended up in rooms across the hall from each other, and the patient’s wife visited them both.

“She said: ‘Thank you for saving my husband’s life,’” he recalled. “I said: ‘No, thank-you for saving my life.’”

Loreto remains on medical leave, the hospital said. He has started cardiac rehab after being transferred from Sudbury to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto for more procedures that involved adding stents to his arteries.

Loreto said he should have gone to his family doctor last summer when the pain continued to persist during exercise, adding that, like many people dedicated to caring for others, he wasn’t good at taking his own health needs seriously.

“We’re wonderful at taking care of others and stink at taking care of ourselves,” he said.

His advice to patients, during heart month or any other time: “Do what I say, and not what I do.” If symptoms are continuing, take them seriously.

The hospital notes that heart attacks and cardiovascular disease are the second leading cause of death in Canada.

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