Once an aorta has ruptured you've got single digit minutes to fix it, otherwise you're brain dead.
This generally happens with aneuryisms.
His started to tear at the meeting. Once you've gone symptomatic and have pain... the clock is ticking very quickly. In some cases the aorta wall lining will separate a bit, but still remain, umm, waterproof... and you;ve got time to get to the ER and surgery. But in others, once the symptoms have started you've got only minutes.
This has happened to me twice. It is not always something that requires surgery (my descending aorta is still "dissected" - that's what it's called) and has been from my neck to my butt since 1997.
The September 2008 dissection was in my ascending aorta. Tears were happening all over the place, including blood vessels heading toward my brain (they saw it during the 12 hour surgery). I was brain dead for 45 minutes, as they cool your body on ice (or something) and disconnect heart & lungs. This was considered dangerous as it may cause brain damage. I am proof you don't need a brain to talk. The scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz knew something.
Although dissections do tend to go "aneuryistic" after a while, a dissection and an aneuryism aren't the same, but both have very high death rates.
If you wanna know more, I consider myself an expert. I am apparently one of very few people ever to survive two of these.
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