# Heart attack may have caused ambulance crash



## MMiz (Apr 29, 2007)

*Heart attack may have caused crash

*Michael J. Latta  was a lifeguard, an instructor in tae kwon do, and an emergency medical technician, and he was just 21.

 Seemingly healthy, he apparently suffered a fatal heart attack while driving an ambulance in Dunstable on Thursday that crashed into a home, killing Latta and his patient, Latta's sister said yesterday.

 "You worry about anyone who is in this type of field," Nicole Latta said in a telephone interview from her family's North Andover home. "Are they going to go on some call and something is going to happen? But you just have to let them do it because it's something they want to do and because they are helping people. You can't stop someone from doing that."

*Read More!
*


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## Epi-do (Apr 29, 2007)

Wow!  How tragic for all the families involved.  I will definately keep all of them in my thoughts and prayers.


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## Glorified (Apr 29, 2007)

Sad.  90 hours a week is insane


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## Airwaygoddess (Apr 29, 2007)

We all need to take care of ourselves....... My thoughts and prayers to those souls -_-


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## firecoins (Apr 29, 2007)

Airwaygoddess said:


> We all need to take care of ourselves.


It seems that he did.  Maybe something else caused his cardiac problems.


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## medicdan (Apr 29, 2007)

I saw an article a day later about this-- a 21 y/o kid, obviously in good health-- how does that work. He must have been around at least his partner-- who should have been able to recognie the signs/symptoms... how can this happen?
This is of course a great loss, and my thoughts go out to the family.


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## bstone (Apr 30, 2007)

I doubt very much that he had an MI of the "normal" type (caused from coronary heart disease). If his heart was to blame it could have been some sort of devestating failure of the heart and related piping. Meaning, some sort of aortic tear, rupture, dissection, etc. 

This is a very sad story. The guy sounded like a real hero. Nice young kid. Damn....


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## Ridryder911 (Apr 30, 2007)

Probably had Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) syndrome. Many athletes have had history arrhythmias and sometimes the arrhythmia will catch up on them. 
This is not that unusual or post mortem. As well many have had cardiac myopathies and never knew it. 

R/r 911


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## Thanach (May 16, 2007)

If i remember right, and i may be wrong, since i just went looking for the original article, and I couldn't find it, but I think it was later said that he had had a hole in his heart when he was younger that had been repaired...

Not sure though, that was only one of two ambulance accidents within a week up here... Second one a crew rolled their ambulance onto a parked mustang...


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## VentMedic (May 16, 2007)

Saw that part of the article also about his "hole in the heart.

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO50410/


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## FF894 (May 21, 2007)

He did have a pre-existing heart condition when he was younger, I can't remember now exactly what it was.  He had been sypmtom free and living a normal life though.  When he coded, he drove off the road crashing through a barn.  As far as his patient, the patient was in arrest when they left the house, which was only a few houses down.  He didn't kill the patient, the patient was already dead.  Sad story, he seemed like he had his head on straight and was on his way to do good things in life.


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## babygirl2882 (Jun 25, 2007)

god to have your life cut off so fast in the begining of doing what you love to do...man that must be hard on his family...makes me think of my area...while I don't work as an Emt yet I know alot of the guys at my staion...lots of young guys his age...how sad would it be for that to happen to them....gees


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