Doctor shares how a 39-year-old man's Christmas party indulgence ended with severe heart failure

Dr Yoo recounts one of his ER encounters where a 39-year-old man decided to experiment with cocaine at a Christmas party and ended up with acute heart failure.

Medical experts have repeatedly warned that even one-time or infrequent use of powerful recreational drugs can have devastating consequences, including life-threatening cardiac events. As the festive season ushers in parties and indulgence, doctors stress that substance misuse and overindulgence can quickly turn dangerous - and, in some cases, fatal.

Read more to discover what actually happened to the man!(Image generated via Google Gemini)

Dr Jeff Yoo, a Canada-based emergency physician at Providence Health Care and clinical instructor at University of British Columbia, recounts how festive revelry sent a 39-year-old man to the emergency department with symptoms of a massive heart attack.

In an Instagram video posted on December 2, he recounts an encounter from last year, when a man decided to dabble in recreational drugs but his indulgence backfired, leaving him with severe heart failure.

How a Christmas party turned into an ER visit

Dr Yoo shares an ECG scan of a patient he treated last Christmas that resembled a heart attack but turned out to be substance-related party overindulgence. He recounts, “A 39-year-old man was at a holiday party and he decided to use cocaine with some of his friends. He wasn't a regular user. He had no past medical history. He wasn't on any medications, and he only decided to use it because it was a special occasion.”

However, he soon developed crushing chest pain accompanied by vomiting and profuse sweating, and by the time he reached the emergency department, his blood pressure was low and he appeared pale and acutely unwell.

Prompt emergency lab work revealed no evidence of a heart attack but showed severe damage to the heart muscle, and he was subsequently admitted to intensive care with acute heart failure.

The physician recalls the incident, “We performed this ECG, which showed ST elevation in the anterior leads which often points to a catastrophic heart attack. I immediately activated code STEMI and sent him straight to the Cath lab. But when the cardiologist injected dye into the coronary vessels, there was no plaque, no blockage. There were no traditional signs of a massive heart attack. But when we did blood work, it showed massive injury to the heart and he had to be admitted to the cardiac ICU for severe heart failure.”

What really happened?

Dr Yoo described the condition as coronary artery vasospasm, explaining that the drug is a powerful sympathomimetic drug that pushes the body into a state or ‘fight or flight’.

He adds, “In the process, it causes all the vessels around your body to squeeze or clamp down and sometimes the vessels that feed the heart muscle itself can squeeze so tightly that it chokes off blood flow entirely. It causes the same damage as a heart attack even though the arteries are technically clean, with no plaques or clots.”

The physician notes that emergency department doctors encounter such cases more often than many realise - not because the cocaine was contaminated or laced with fentanyl, but because cocaine itself is an inherently dangerous drug. Dr Yoo highlights the importance of celebrating the holiday season safely and responsibly, to prevent such mishaps.

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