Those who suffer from panic attacks mostly describe it as experiencing heart attack,feeling of faintness & nausea, pain in chest,breathing heavily,and having a strong feeling to escape from the situation.

Panic attacks are a response of the Sympathetic nervous system.In some cases there may be alarming signals before a attack arrives.These alarms make a positive feedback loop and cause a vicious cycle to set up infinitely.

Also in many patients the major symptoms are shortness of breath and chest pain which is described as heart attack by the patient.However this most often happens in the medical hospital set-ups.Panic attacks may be distinguished from other types of attacks by judging its intensity and sudden episodic repetative occurence.They may also be associated with some other psychological disease.The best cure to combat panic attacks may be some kind of relaxation techniques and also practicing some techniques to break the vicious cycle of repetative attacks.(You may refer to Joe Barry Panic Away book for complete methods).Also a certain degree of self-confidence in handling situations is necessary which will immensely help in decreasing the severity of such attacks.