I thought I would update my BLOG with this additional information. I will try to get an difinitive answer ..... if there is one .... I do like the "chew" and "call 911"
(Not a medical professional, but)
Taking one or two aspirin immediately if you suspect a heart attack IS standard medical advice. Calling a friend or neighbor IS NOT. Call 911 and then follow the instructions.
A lot of people don't want to call 911, maybe because they're in denial about how serious it might be, they don't want the neighbors gawking, they don't want the bill, they think it's not serious enough and don't want to tie up an ambulance for "someone who might really need it" - the reasoning goes, "by the time the ambulance gets here and loads me up, I could already be ten minutes closer to the hospital in my car." But you won't have a defibrillator, you won't have trained paraprofessionals, you won't have access to oxygen, and you won't be able to call the emergency room and tell them to prep a cardiac/MI suite and get the on-call cardiologist into the department.
Don't let the aspirin dissolve - chew it. The idea is to get it into your system as quickly as possible. When it's not in pressed tablet form, it enters the bloodstream more quickly, but the time it would take to dissolve in the mouth would defeat the purpose. (If, like me, the idea of chewing aspirin makes you gag, you could crush it before swallowing.)
And do tell the dispatcher and the EMTs that you took aspirin, and how many. The SOP is to administer aspirin to anyone with a suspected MI, but aspirin is a blood thinner, and if you wind up needing to have surgery, too much of an anticoagulation effect can cause excessive bleeding.
The part about the aspirin could help save lives; the part about calling a friend or neighbor could endanger lives.
