Changing strategies of treating heart disease in Kentucky

COVID 19 along with other respiratory diseases remain a priority in Kentucky. But, it’s heart disease that is still the number one cause of death in the Commonwealth. There are several aspects to prevention, treatment, and aftercare.
In 2018, at age 57 and in the midst of a stressful time with company business, Lexington resident Mark Meade had a heart attack while walking through the Blue Grass Airport parking lot. He didn’t recognize it as such, but later, at a relatively slow pace during a subsequent stress test, Meade had a complete system failure and was thrown off the treadmill. He said if he had the event on the walkway outside the hospital, he would have died.
“If I have it on a sidewalk next to a fire station..there’s a fire station across the road. If I have the event there and I have the EMT on me immediately, I don’t survive. There’s only one place I can go down and it’s in the middle of Gill Heart and it still took a heroic effort by 18 people for ten hours to bring me back,” said Meade.