What's the difference between a heart attack and cardiac arrest?

cardiac rest means your heart stops...a heart attack doesn't always stop your heart.

Heart attack is the lay person's word for cardiac arrest which medical persons use

Basically the same thing. Cardiac arrest means your heart has stopped. Sometimes you are said to be "having a heart attack" if part of your heart is in the process of dying by having blood and oxygen cut off from it by a clot in your coronary arteries. So you could be having a heart attack which could end in cardiac arrest.

Heart attack is a condition when an area of muscle is damage due to permanent arrest of blood supply to that area & cardiac arrest is the next step.

Heart Attack: Occurs when the supply of blood and oxygen to the area of the heart muscle is blocked, usually by a clot in a coronary artery. Often this blockage leads to arrhythmia's (irregular heartbeat) or rhythm.
A severe decrease in the pumping function of the heart and may bring about sudden death.If the blockage is not treated within a few hours, the affected heart muscle will die and will be replaced by scar tissue.

Cardiac arrest: More aptly called sudden cardiac arrest death, sudden cardiac arrest is a condition in which the heartbeat stops suddenly and unexpectedly. It is called caused by life threatening.
In this condition the heartbeats so chaotically that it is unable to pump blood to the body and brain. The most common arrhythmia is ventricular.
The sudden cardiac arrest victim first loses his or her pulse then consciousness and finally the ability to breath without immediate treatment the victim always dies.

Look here:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/heart...

Heart attack = Myocardial infarction. IOW, part of the heart muscle has died due to oxygen starvation, often from blockage of one of the coronary arteries.

Cardiac arrest = Your heart is either not pumping at all or is pumping too fast and too erratically to sustain life. Sadly, this often happens to people who are suffering a heart attack and refuse to go to the hospital. The hospital can abort cardiac arrest.

OKAY ALL YOU CRACK SMOKERS LETS GET THIS STRAIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...

Heart Attack is correct as above:
A clot in the coronary arteries (fat, platelets, air) that causes a block of blood that feeds certain parts of the body. It can be minor and cause no damage or be major and kill you.
The technical term is Myocardial Infarction or MI. Its the number one killer in america. On a heart monitor (showing I have medical training) it can show as ST elevation, a bundle branch block, or even ST elevation. (last part all medical crap)

CARDIAC ARREST!!!!

IS AS FOLLOWS!!!!!!!!!

1) THE HEART IS IN ASYSTOLE (flat lined) that translates to absolutely no electrical activity in the heart... no palpaple pulse (cant feel a pulse at the neck or the carotid artery)

2) PEA or Pulseless Electrical Activity its where the electricity is still firing but your heart does absolutely nothing. Only 2% survival rate.

3) Ventricular Fibrillation: Your heart is completely out of wack your chambers aren't firing the way they are supposed to... imagine jello... Sometimes reversible by defibrillation (they shock you like on TV). Very low survivability unless someone watched you go down and shocks you right away with an AED... the automated external defibrillators... like you see in the airport.

Cardiac arrest follows respiratory arrest (you stop breathing), severe trauma, myocardial infarction (heart attack), congenital problems.

Now to address the person that said it was because your heart beats to fast... that is incorrect.

That is Ventricular Tachycardia.... means the ventricles in your heart beat WAY to fast ... usually over 140 beats per minute. The medication commonly used to reverse this is adenosine. Its called a chemical cardioversion... if that doesn't work they will defibrilate you just as if you were dead... but they do it when you are awake... it hurts like hell.

Just so you know I have worked on an ambulance for 6 years. I have seen more MI's than anyone, and I have done CPR more times than I can remember.

When we do CPR its because someone is in "FULL ARREST" means they are in cardiac and respiratory arrest.

THERE YOU GO!!!

OK, since you claimed my comment about the heart was inaccurate, person who has worked on an ambulance for six years, I can assure that what I said was accurate. If you had actually read my comment, you would have noticed that I said beating fast AND erratically. I was referring to v-fib. V-fib is absolutely considered a form of cardiac arrest (and you made clear that you knew that in your post) and the person is not conscious for more than a few seconds. So, sorry, but my comment was not incorrect.