COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) – When South Carolina lawmakers gaveled in last month to begin their new legislative session, Rep. Leon Howard took the seat he has held for more than a decade.
The Richland County Democrat was thankful to be there after what he experienced last summer, starting when he woke up in the middle of the night.
“I had excruciating pain in my shoulder, which alerted me there was a larger problem,” Howard said.
It’s a warning Howard admits he probably would have ignored and chalked up to indigestion or a pulled muscle after a long day of work.
But just days before, Howard attended a men’s health workshop hosted by Prisma Health in Columbia, at the urging of women he knew in his community and those organizing the event.
One of the points it drove home was how many men disregard the warning signs of serious cardiac problems.
“People tend to ignore these symptoms because everyone thinks, ‘I’m not having chest pain, or I’m not having the shortness of breath, so it may not be my heart,’ and that’s where the difficulty comes,” Dr. Summer Aldrugh, an interventional cardiologist with Prisma Health, said.
Aldrugh treated Howard after he called 9-1-1, was rushed in an ambulance to Prisma Health Richland Hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
He was having a massive heart attack.
“There’s a term we always use, which is ‘time is muscle,’ and so the sooner we can intervene and restore flow to the heart muscle, the less damage that the patient would have to his heart in the future,” Aldrugh said.
To prevent sustained heart damage, Aldrugh said their goal is to let no more than 90 minutes pass from the time a patient experiencing a heart attack calls for medical care to the time surgeons are inside their blood vessels, working to clear the blockage and restore blood flow.
Howard said if he had not heard the message from the health seminar days earlier, he likely would have taken over-the-counter medication, gone back to sleep, and tried to push through the pain.
“I would’ve rode it out, and then the pain probably — according to some physicians I’ve talked to — the pain probably would’ve subsided, probably would’ve just gone away for some days,” Howard said. “And then I probably would’ve had a massive heart attack at some point because my main artery was blocked 100%.”
In his coronary angiograms — a type of medical image — a significant portion of that artery was unable to be seen prior to Howard’s surgery because it was so blocked. After the surgery, it becomes visible in the image, with the blockage removed.
Howard spent several days in the intensive care unit post-surgery and said, months later, he had received a good bill of health from his doctor.
“I had a second chance at life, where I don’t have major damage done to my heart,” he said.
He credits Prisma’s team for his survival and urges other men to heed the same warning that he, fortunately, listened to.
“I feel like it saved my life, and hopefully someone else will have that same experience,” Howard said.
Outside the typical signs of a heart attack, like chest pain and shortness of breath, Aldrugh said to pay attention to unexplained pains that could be atypical heart attack symptoms.
“If you usually don’t get bad indigestion, that’s maybe a sign, or if you don’t really have a baseline of any signs or history of shoulder pain, then that could be something to be worried about,” she said.
She said atypical symptoms for women can vary even more, like nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and even jaw or teeth pain.
To prevent heart attacks and promote heart health, Aldrugh encourages people to work with their primary care physician and control risk factors that lead to coronary artery disease, including controlling blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking and adopting a healthy, active lifestyle.
Copyright 2025 WCSC. All rights reserved.
Kaiser Permanente mental health workers strike can end with help of a mediator, Gov. Newsom suggests
