The ACT has the best heart attack survival rate in the country, and Heart Foundation ACT's Tony Stubbs said a mix of better technology, improved emergency systems and our less congested roads were some of the main reasons.
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"Anyone in Canberra can ring 000 and seek an ambulance and you would be on the table [in surgery] within one hour," Mr Stubbs said.
The Heart Foundation has said more than half of heart attack deaths nationally occur before the person reaches hospital, and almost a quarter happen within one hour of the first warning sign.
David Gambrill, 50, can vouch for the benefits of a speedy emergency system, despite not making the triple-0 call.
The sales coach was at home in 2009 when he felt intense pain in his back and elbow.
"I was going to wait for 15 minutes and see if it passes, and according to [my wife] I went greyer and started to sink down into the lounge, so we said 'all right, let's go' - which is not the right thing to do, we should have called the ambulance - but we just jumped in the car and headed to hospital," he said.
"I went straight in to emergency. They kept me in and [then] transferred hospitals … had I not gone in, it would have in all likelihood been fatal."
Mr Gambrill - who ended up with five stents inserted after being in good health since a double bypass in 2000 and some minor "heart events" in 2005 - said education and shifts in culture had been important for those at risk of heart attacks.
"For guys it's more and more OK to get to the doctor and get a check-up. In my dad's era, they just didn't go," he said.
"And I genuinely think the campaigns around the awareness, and the last one done with the Heart Foundation - essentially [with] deceased people saying they wish they could have their heart attack again - that was a ripper."
The effects of the ACT's 60 per cent decline in heart attack death rates since 2001 - down to 21 deaths per 100,000 people - are profound.
Heart attacks killed 70 in the territory in 2011, down from 146 in 2001. The rate cut was better than all other jurisdictions - there was a 39 per cent fall nationally - and came despite a 14.5 per cent increase in ACT population across the decade.
The decline in deaths was despite a 95 per cent increase in the number of people admitted to hospital with a heart attack in the ACT in the 10-year period.
Mr Stubbs said improvements to emergency systems meant those needing a heart bypass could be diverted directly to the Canberra Hospital and skip the emergency department.