6 By Kristina Orrego It was a rainy night in June of this year when Michael Delfino and his family were camping 15 miles outside of Coeur d’Alene. Michael woke up in the morning to the family puppy crawling on his chest. While trying to get the puppy off, he felt his chest suddenly tighten. “I thought I broke a rib trying to get the dog off me,” said Michael. “I leaned up, stretched my shoulders back and tried to stretch my ribs out. It wasn’t giving me any relief.” Despite the excruciating pain, Michael could still think straight. He and his wife, Jenny, rationalized that he might be having a panic attack, which he had seen her have in the past. “He kept saying he needed to stretch,” said Jenny. “But his eyes didn’t look right, and I could tell that something was very wrong.” Swift action They realized every minute was precious and quickly drove to Kootenai Health’s emergency department. When they arrived and the emergency medical team heard Michael’s symptoms, they wasted no time. Michael, who was 34 at the time, was experiencing the seemingly unthinkable for a young, healthy person: He was having a heart attack. “When I walked in, I just told them my heart really hurts,” said Michael. “The team instantly took action—putting me in a wheelchair and rushing me back to the cath lab.” Before Michael knew it, the nurses had removed his shirt and shoes, attached electrocardiogram (EKG) pads to his chest to monitor his heart and started an IV drip. He was also given a blood thinner and medication to help relieve the chest pain. The pain showed no signs of stopping. Michael was now going into ventricular fibrillation, or VFIB—a condition that causes the heart to beat faster and out of rhythm. “They had to shock me and do CPR,” said Michael. “I woke up not knowing what happened, but I felt perfectly fine after that.” During this ordeal, Kootenai Heart Clinics cardiologist and surgeon Ronald Jenkins, M.D., performed an emergency A heart attack seemed unlikely for a young man in good health—but he and Kootenai Health didn’t wait to act on it HEART TROUBLE Unthinkable Michael Delfino led a healthy lifestyle even before having a heart attack at age 34.
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