How long was he down and how long was his body deprived of oxygen? That's likely going to be the biggest factor. My uncle had a major heart attack. Had he not been at his doctors (he thought he had the flu), they told him he would be dead.

It depends, but I know someone who was in a medically induced coma for weeks following a heart attack and he made a full recovery. Mid to late 40s. A bit overweight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most 70 year olds have a living will. Their wishes will be spelled out there. Search around for it or talk to health care providers to see if your loved one has a living will on file.
Best wishes.

This is woefully naive. Most living wills are pretty useless unless the medical prognosis is very clear. Often it is not. Certainly not this soon unless it is very bad news.

Have you ever seen a living will? An elderly person ought to have a Do Not Intubate order in their living will. That would cover a lot of situations.

Anonymous wrote:Most 70 year olds have a living will. Their wishes will be spelled out there. Search around for it or talk to health care providers to see if your loved one has a living will on file.
Best wishes.

This is woefully naive. Most living wills are pretty useless unless the medical prognosis is very clear. Often it is not. Certainly not this soon unless it is very bad news.

That's still in the age range for organ donation.

Most 70 year olds have a living will. Their wishes will be spelled out there. Search around for it or talk to health care providers to see if your loved one has a living will on file.
Best wishes.

I’ve been through this. What caused the cardiac arrest? How long were they down before their heart was restarted? Every minute without oxygen means more brain damage and less likelihood of a meaningful recovery. First 48 hours are critical to see if they show any signs of waking up. Then they’ll do CT scan and MRI around day 2 or 3 to see what it shows. If it shows severe brain damage they may begin talking about removing lifesupport.

How long was he without oxygen? Happened to my parent and after several days in the ICU and mri showed severe brain damage we took her off the ventilator. It was incredibly sad as we were not ready for her to leave us, but not a hard decision because we knew she’d never want to live attached to machines for the rest of her life.

Nurse here. That's not a whole lot of info OP. It depends on many things. What caused the arrest? How long was the patient down (how long did they have to do CPR, etc)? Medical history (is this a relatively healthy person vs. someone with lots of comorbidities)? Best to speak to treatment team (physician, nurse).

No one knows it is specific to his case and medical history. Don’t waste energy here all you will gat is bad information. Talk to his doctors.

This is an article that explains what happens from the patients view - despite the gloomy title, the guy survived, is healthy and active and wrote the article.

https://longreads.com/2023/05/30/sudden-death/

Anything is possible

Thats not useful waiting til later anyone been there

Talk to the doctor.

Coma induced, 70 year old man. What happens next