2007年VOA标准英语-Sudden Cardiac Arrest Often Comes as Surprise

By Carol Pearson
Washington
25 July 2007
 

You may have heard about young athletes, still teenagers, whose hearts stop beating, sometimes while playing sports. In many of these cases, their parents and doctors find out after the fact that these young athletes have a heart condition.  But for those with a specific genetic¹ disease, implantable defibrillators may save their lives.  Here is VOA's Carol Pearson.

It is a tragic² story.  A young athlete has a heart attack and dies. 

Brandon Williams

Brandon Williams was only 13 years old when he suffered sudden cardiac arrest.

Since then, the school Brandon attended has acquired an external defibrillator, a device that can shock a heart back into a normal rhythm. But the solution for some people is a miniature, implantable defibrillator.

Twenty-two-year-old Paul McSweeney was only 11 when doctors diagnosed him with a genetic heart disease called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It causes the heart wall to thicken.

Dr. Barry Maron examines Paul McSweeney

Paul's mother, Mary McSweeney, recalls the doctor's instructions. "They said that he should limit his activity, which is really tough for an 11-year-old kid, and that he could live a normal life, but that there was a risk of sudden death."

To reduce that risk, Paul had a defibrillator implanted in his chest. Later, when he took a nap after the stress of studying for final exams, his heart started beating irregularly. "I just abruptly³ woke up and I wasn't really sure what had happened at that point in time, and I later went in for a medical check up and they confirmed the fact that I had been defibrillated," he recalls.

His mother adds, "The timing⁴ was amazing.  He got a defibrillator only months before he needed it and it saved his life."

Dr. Barry Maron is an expert hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  He and his colleagues studied about 500 patients like Paul with implanted defibrillators.  "We have found that it is now possible to change the natural course of the disease for some patients by preventing sudden cardiac death," said Dr. Maron.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

During the course of the study, the defibrillators sent electric shocks to more than 100 patients who had irregular heartbeats, saving their lives.

1 genetic   

adj.遗传的，遗传学的

参考例句：

• It's very difficult to treat genetic diseases.遗传性疾病治疗起来很困难。
• Each daughter cell can receive a full complement of the genetic information.每个子细胞可以收到遗传信息的一个完全补偿物。

2 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

3 abruptly   

adv.突然地，出其不意地

参考例句：

• He gestured abruptly for Virginia to get in the car.他粗鲁地示意弗吉尼亚上车。
• I was abruptly notified that a half-hour speech was expected of me.我突然被通知要讲半个小时的话。

4 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。