[T'wit]

Now we have to wonder, "WHAT potassium imbalance?" Dr. Hammesfahr was pretty adamant about it:

Dr.Hammesfahr: But the medical record clearly shows that there has NEVER been heart attack. Potassium causes damage by causing heart attacks, so we know that potassium is not an issue...

Can you figure what's going on here?

[Graymatter]

I hope someone here addresses this. Hammesfahr definitely said that potassium wasn't the issue and there was NO heart attack.
Couple of q's for the MD's here. Is there a difference between heart attack and cardiac arrest? Can either condition be determined by blood tests hours/days later? Would potassium levels remain low hours after a heart attack or cardiac arrest? If low K can cause cardiac arrest, what about the converse---can cardiac arrest cause low K? If they determined at the hospital that Terri had both a cardiac arrest AND low K, how did they know which came first?

[FatherOfLiberty]

I'd love to review Terri's medical records from her initial ER visit and subsequent hospitalization, especially the blood lab work reports. Having worked in cardiac rehab in the past, I know that there are two key enzymes that appear in the blood after a heart attack. They are CPK (creatine phosphokinase) and Troponin. There are also subfractions of these two enzymes that help physicians definitively diagnose myocardial infarctions (MI or more commonly, heart attack). Elevated CPK levels could appear with severe muscle trauma alone, but the CPK-MB fractionate, if elevated, is highly suggestive of MI. The "Troponin I" on the other hand has 100% sensitivity to acute MI.

(Note: I am not a doctor and I do not play one on TV)