By Dave Smith
Lead Street Survival Seminar Instructor
Last Thursday, January 11th, 2007, Sergeant James H. Hardin, 35, died of a heart attack while chasing a suspect along with his canine partner. This is the first heart attack on duty recorded for this year following the ten deaths we had from heart attacks last year.
One can’t study officer’s deaths over the years and not be struck by the similarities in these deaths and wonder what we might do to prevent them. I have studied this phenomenon since my first assignment as a fitness and officer survival trainer back in 1980. Often there is no underlying disease in these fatalities and often they are relatively young, under fifty.
So what do we know about these deaths. First, they are almost always men, not shocking; men are more prone to sudden death and cardiovascular diseases. On average, men only live to an average age of 72 while women live to an average age of 79. What variable does science agree on? Surprisingly, many issues still remain unsolved and many questions still remain unanswered in dealing with heart disease and heart attacks.
Ask any expert and they will tell you the key to a long life is picking the right parents. Cute, but not something an individual has any control over! We can, however, use our family history as a compensator to make an effort to avoid inherited liabilities such as high risk of coronary disease or diabetes. Diet, exercise, weight control, and medications can help prevent many threats we might inherit from our parents, but scientists still say it is a serious predictor of life span.
One fact that seems pretty consistent in research is that one of the keys in surviving a sudden heart attack is a high level of fitness, following an exercise regimen should be basic to the law enforcement lifestyle since we might be called upon at any moment to run, fight, climb, or even swim, not only will fitness make us better officers it will enhance our odds of surviving!
The one trouble with exercise it increases our risk of death while we are doing it. It is called “The Jogger’s Dilemma”, the phenomena that things that increase our odds of survival often increase our chance of death while doing them. In other words, exercise increases your risk of death while doing it but decreases your chance of death if you survive it! A great book on this is Aaron Wildavsky’s Searching for Safety, if you are a trainer or administrator looking to understand risk a little better it is a great resource.
This issue of exercise then brings us to the topic of on duty deaths during or following sudden intense strenuous exertion without warming up! Think about it, we never get to warm up for a fight or foot pursuit; we are just zero to sixty out of the vehicle like a greyhound out of the gate. This is a dangerous thing for a human to do. It creates a serious oxygen debt in some very important muscles…such as your heart! Way back in the seventies UCLA took ten healthy firefighters and students and had them due sudden, intense, near maximal, exercise without warming up. Following this bout of exercise six of the ten had abnormal ECG’s! Six healthy men out of ten suddenly had abnormal readings and it was not related to their age, the men ranged from 20 to 52. (1)
This risk would seem to explain the rare but tragic event we see annually of the officer who wins a fight only to fall over from a heart attack! What do we do? Well, first off, remember this is a rare occurrence. The odds of this happening to you is rare and it would be great if you could warm up before getting into that next fight, or foot pursuit, of course you can’t. The next best thing is to maintain a good level of fitness.
I think too many folks advocate running marathons and doing three miles daily. In fact, most people aren’t even built to run long distances, it tears up their joints. There is a multitude of ways to improve your fitness: walking, swimming, riding bikes, hiking, skating, and many other activities; just find the ones you enjoy and do them!
None of this guarantees you won’t have a heart attack after running down and fighting a suspect, but perhaps it will increase your odds of surviving the number one cause of death in this country…coronary heart disease!
Stay safe,
Notes.
1. Ischemic Response to Sudden Strenuous Exercise in Healthy Men, By R. James Barnard, PhD Circulation 1973;48;936-942
