Freddie Sloan, 63, suffered a heart attack in 2001 after she ate a hoagie sandwich and dismissed the discomfort in her chest as indigestion.
When the pain became so excruciating she couldn?t sleep, her husband took her to the hospital, where she was rushed to the cardiac ward, she said.
“It was so strange because I never thought I?d be the one having a heart attack,” said Sloan, who attended Sunday?s 8:30 a.m. Red Dress Sunday service at New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore.
Congregates wore red to services at more than 50 local churches Sunday to promote heart health among black women, who disproportionately suffer from heart disease, St. Agnes Hospital Community Outreach Liaison Hope Williams said.
Red Dress Sunday, a collaboration between St. Agnes and area churches, educates black women about the health risks they face and encourages them to seek preventive care before serious illnesses arise.
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women.
Women are about three or four times more likely to develop heart disease than breast cancer, said Dr. Carlos Ince, a cardiologist at St. Agnes.
Risk factors for heart disease include a family history of diabetes, obesity, hypertension, smoking, inactivity and poor access to medical care, Ince said. These are all common in the black community.
“Anything we can do as a church to help stem a crisis like this is to our advantage and the advantage of our members,” said the Rev. Harold Carter Jr., of New Shiloh. St. Agnes? Vice President of Preoperative Services Dorothy Jones urged the red-clad women at New Shiloh to “know your numbers” regarding blood pressure and cholesterol.
“As a people, we typically stay away from hospitals,” Jones said to the audience of about 1,800.
Before her heart attack, Sloan got her blood pressure checkedregularly but not her cholesterol. “I get the whole works after that,” she said.
