A-Fib, low blood pressure and agonal respirations

[maybebaby29]

Sunday I witnessed the most horrific thing. My dad answered the door, got dizzy, then fell to the point where he went into respiratory distress and had agonal respirations. I thought he died in front of me. He has CHF, biventricular failure, aortal backflow, a-fib and has a pacemaker w/ defibulator. I called 911 because I thought he was dying and figured his defib kicked in because after a minute he regained consciousness.

I'm getting zero answers beyond "low blood pressure/orthostatic hypotension". But to me, OH would not cause the agonal respirations. WHY did he get this agnonal respirations and then came to?

He's in the hospital now and they're tapping his pacemaker to get a reading but I won't get a straight answer.

I get orthostatic hypotension spells but never do I stop breathing. His current BP is 80.

[maybebaby29]

It was a very fish out of water gasp, non responsive, staring wide eyed, and no I am not a RN/MD but am well versed with a medical background. However, I can 100% say that what examples I saw of agonal respiration was exactly what I witnessed. It was not an asthma attack (son/myself has that). It was not a seizure either.

It was the most traumatic thing I've witnessed yet. My mom just passed from metastatic breast cancer and at least with her passing, I knew the stages of death and what to expect. This was out of the blue and I couldn't get to him due to a screen glass door locked .I had to bust the door open to get to him and he was non responsive--just gasping and staring.

I'm worried about hypoxia and brain trauma for him. This episode lasted over 30 seconds. When he had a holter monitor it said at one point his heart just stopped for 4 seconds, thus the pacemaker/defib was implanted.

I hope it shows something. I thought he died right in front of me.

[itdood]

p.s., he's got a lot going on, you may not ever get a straight answer.  The root cause is "all of the above".

[itdood]

Do you have experience in diagnosing or observing agonal respiration?  There are other types of irregular respiration to consider.

agonal respiration is the result of poor blood profusion/hypoxia and is associated with sudden cardiac shock, among other things.

But you are probably right, as agonal respiration can happen when the heart suddenly isn't pumping enough blood or goes asystole for some reason, whether it be from arrhythmia, OH, valve issues, cardiomyopathy, ischemia, or combination thereof...

Did they interrogate his ICD?  that should show if it shocked him.