Heart Attack

WCAU-TV (Channel 10) features reporter Sheela Allen-Stephens was in stable condition last night after suffering a heart attack in Atlantic City this weekend. Channel 10 news director Steve Doerr said yesterday that Allen-Stephens, 47, became ill Saturday evening while staying in an Atlantic City hotel with her husband, Channel 10 camerman Lonnie Stephens. At first, Doerr said, she thought it was indigestion, but the next morning she was admitted to Atlantic City Medical Center, where doctors diagnosed a heart attack.

Horsham Township Council President James Doherty was home relaxing this week and looking forward to returning to work after suffering a near fatal heart attack during the Memorial Day weekend. Doherty said earlier this week that when he traveled to his summer home in the Poconos several weeks ago, he was prepared for "a weekend of relaxation. " Instead, he suffered a "massive heart attack" while sawing limbs off of a fallen tree and ended up spending two weeks in the Mount Pocono Medical Center in East Stroudsburg.

Smith Kline & French Laboratories has agreed to become the exclusive U.S. distributor of a Swedish drug that has the potential to save thousands of heart attack victims. The drug, KabiKinase, is manufactured in Sweden by KabiVitrum AB of Stockholm - one of two world producers of the drug streptokinase, said Jeremy Heymsfeld, SmithKline Beckman spokesman. KabiVitrum is the smaller of the two producers, said Alan Wachter of Smith Kline & French Labs. Terms of the accord were not released, although executives of both firms may say more when they meet with reporters this morning in New York.

A 73-year-old Haycock Township man who died Wednesday after statepolice took him into custody suffered a heart attack, according to the BucksCounty Coroner's Office. State troopers at Dublin said they responded to an early morning call fromthe home of Richard L. Frick that was made to Bucks County 911 to investigatea "domestic disturbance. " Cpl. Rick Pendergrass said troopers arrived at the Camp Trail Road home at4:38 a.m. and saw Frick through his living-room window, holding a gun. He said the troopers ordered Frick out of the house and searched him forweapons outside his front door.

A Fire Department lieutenant was in critical condition last night after suffering a heart attack while battling a one-alarm fire in a North Philadelphia rowhouse. Stephen Murphy, 47, of Ladder Co. 1 at 1541 Parrish St., was admitted to Allegheny University Hospitals/Hahnemann, where an emergency procedure was performed to open a clogged artery and supply blood to his heart, authorities said. Murphy fell ill while fighting the 2:46 p.m. blaze on the 1500 block of North Garnet Street.

Stephen Naughton, the veteran Philadelphia police sergeant whose car plunged into the Schuylkill River Tuesday afternoon, died of a heart attack, the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office ruled yesterday. Naughton, 55, died of acute myocardial infarction, with a secondary cause of death listed as drowning, office spokesman Jeff Moran said. The manner of death is listed as accidental. Naughton, a married father of two and 31-year veteran of the force, had just left work at Police Headquarters at 8th and Race streets and was headed to his home in the Andorra section of northwest Philadelphia.

Comedian Rodney Dangerfield suffered a mild heart attack on his 80th birthday and remains hospitalized in intensive care, his publicist said yesterday. Dangerfield, whose long-running gag is that he gets no respect, had the heart attack Thursday, publicist Warren Cowan said. Dangerfield will undergo tests tomorrow, Cowan said. Doctors then will determine what treatment he requires. The comedian's wife, Joan, expects Dangerfield to be home by midweek, Cowan said. Dangerfield kept his sense of humor.

Rosie O'Donnell got a scary reminder of her mortality last week when she had a heart attack at home. She calls it "a miracle" that she survived. O'Donnell revealed the attack in verse form on her blog Monday: "i am happy to be alive/last week i had a heart attack. " After feeling an ache in her chest and becoming clammy, then very hot and throwing up, she decided to check her symptoms online: "i had many of them/but really? - i thought - naaaa. " Then she did something that she credits with saving her life: "i took some bayer aspirin/thank god/saved by a tv commercial/literally.

The world's oldest Jewish person, Evelyn Kozak, whose family fled Russia to escape anti-Semitism in the 1880s, died Tuesday at 113. Mrs. Kozak had suffered a heart attack the day before, her granddaughter Brucha Weisberger said. She was buried next to her parents in a Brooklyn cemetery. Mrs. Kozak was the world's oldest documented Jewish person and the world's seventh-oldest person, said Robert Young, a senior database administrator at the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, an organization of physicians, scientists, and engineers who validate supercentenarians, people 110 or older.

Is there a doctor on board? Surprisingly often, there is - in half of in-flight medical emergencies - and sick airline passengers almost always survive, a new study finds. The research is the largest look yet at what happens to people who develop a medical problem on a commercial flight - 44,000 of the 2.75 billion passengers worldwide each year, researchers estimate. Most cases do not require diverting a plane as the study's leader, Christian Martin-Gill, advised a pilot to do two years.

LOS ANGELES - Ed Shaughnessy, the jazz drummer who for nearly three decades anchored the rhythm section of Doc Severinsen's "Tonight Show" band, has died in Southern California. He was 84. William Selditz, a close family friend, told the Los Angeles Times that Shaughnessy had a heart attack Friday at his home in Calabasas, outside Los Angeles. The New Jersey native began his jazz career as a teenager, playing with Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and Count Basie. From 1963 to 1992, Shaughnessy was a late-night television fixture as part of the house band on NBC's "Tonight Show.

STAR JONES is a lawyer, author and celebrated TV personality who is perhaps best known for her larger-than-life personality and "tell it like it is" candidness. She once tipped the scales at more than 300 pounds, underwent gastric-bypass surgery 10 years ago and has maintained her weight loss. But in 2010, at age 47, she faced her biggest health crisis so far when she was diagnosed with heart disease and had open-heart surgery to repair her aortic valve. Now a proud spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, Star was in Philly recently as the keynote speaker at the 10th annual Go Red For Women Luncheon.

Calvin G. Connett, 93, who retired as a Philadelphia regional sales manager for Pitney Bowes, the manufacturer of postage meters and computer software and hardware, died of a heart attack Monday, May 6, at his home in Cinnaminson, where he had lived since 1973. Born on Staten Island, N.Y., Mr. Connett worked for Pitney Bowes after graduating from high school. He served in the Army from May 1941 to November 1945, mostly in a supply unit. A son-in-law, John McElhinney, said Mr. Connett landed in France 10 days after D-Day and fought in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

Eating fish is good for your heart, but taking fish-oil capsules does not help people at high risk of heart problems who are already taking medicines to prevent them, a large study in Italy found. The work makes clearer who does and does not benefit from taking supplements of the good oils found in fish such as salmon, tuna, and sardines. Previous studies have suggested that fish-oil capsules could lower heart risks in people with heart failure or who have already suffered a heart attack.

I can only imagine what happened when my father died unexpectedly of a heart attack just after midnight. We lived on a narrow street of two-story twins, and the ambulance lights must have spun red through the bedrooms that night. The uncharacteristic hubbub on our quiet block surely brought neighbors to their windows, if not their porches. I can only imagine, because I wasn't there. At the time, I was a sophomore at Temple University. After spending most of the day and evening at the Temple News, putting out our student daily, I had just returned to my dorm room when the call came.

DIOCESE OF HARRISBURG officials say Bishop Joseph McFadden died of a heart attack last week after suddenly falling ill while attending a meeting of the Catholic Bishops of Pennsylvania. McFadden, 65, died Thursday morning at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Huntingdon Valley. Officials say McFadden awoke feeling ill and was taken to a hospital. McFadden was an Overbrook native and well-known locally as a longtime coach and teacher in Philadelphia's Catholic school system. Church officials say McFadden's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday following several days of services.

SAN FRANCISCO - One of the scariest parts of bypass surgery - having your heart stopped and going on a heart-lung machine while doctors fix your clogged arteries - does not cause mental decline, as many people have feared, and is safe even in the elderly, two landmark studies show. Bypass surgery is one of the most common operations in the world. There is debate about the best way to do it, and patients often are given a choice. Usually doctors stop the heart to make it easier to connect new blood vessels to detour around blocked ones.

HOW DO WE prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes in the next five years? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the Million Hearts initiative in 2012 to answer this question. And it's as simple as the ABC'S: A spirin for risk reduction. B lood-pressure control. C holesterol-lowering. S moking cessation. Since February is Heart Month, this is a great time for Philadelphia to start working on its share of the goal - preventing 5,000 heart attacks and strokes among city residents by 2017.