1. A medical device for delivering emergency stimulation to an emergency patient who has suffered an acute myocardial infarction, the device comprising: a flexible tether adapted to be fed into a patient's throat, the flexible tether including a plurality of electrodes; a neural stimulation circuit adapted to deliver neural stimulation; and a controller adapted to control the neural stimulation circuit to deliver emergency parasympathetic stimulation as provide a post myocardial infarction therapy to protect against cardiac damage following the acute myocardial infarction using at least one electrode from the plurality of electrodes, the controller being adapted to implement a neural stimulation test routine, the neural stimulation test routine being adapted to assess neural stimulation efficacy for electrode subsets of the plurality of electrodes to identify a desired electrode subset for use in delivering neural stimulation to elicit a desired vagal nerve response that increases parasympathetic tone and decreases sympathetic tone, wherein the post myocardial infarction therapy is configured to protect against cardiac damage following the acute myocardial infarction by eliciting the desired vagal nerve response.