1983 death of 20-year-old friend

[jfreema]

In 1983, a friend came to visit me, a few minutes into the visit, laughed nervously and said that she was "a little dizzy." She then suddenly fell over face down onto the bed and started breathing in and out very, very deeply, wet on herself, her lips turned blue - she was dead within a couple of minutes. The two of us who were there were 20, too, thought she was kidding, and we did everything wrong, including carrying her to the car to take her to the hospital around the corner instead of calling an ambulance. She was lifeless from the time she stopped breathing those deep breaths, and in the car on the way to the hospital, her eyes were open. They pulled her out of the car and started doing CPR on the sidewalk before taking her into the ER. After a while, and after a lot of questions about timing, about eating, about what had happened, symptoms she mentioned, they told us that "if she lived" she'd have severe brain damage because of the amount of time it took us to get her to the hospital. It felt like my insides fell down through the chair and down into the floor. Then a couple of minutes later, after her mother arrived, they told her mother she was dead in our presence.

They did an autopsy, and her mother told us the results said her heart had burst. She didn't understand the rest so she couldn't tell us more. The friend who was there with me had a father who acted as our town cardiologist. The friend said his father talked to the medical examiner and found out that she had a congenital heart problem, and that even though she wasn't overweight at all, her heart was surrounded by flab instead of muscle, that she had an irregular heartbeat, that her heart had enlarged to twice its size before it ruptured. The condition was hereditary so they had recommended that the rest of her siblings be checked. The doctor told his son that even if she had been open and on a surgical table when the rupture happened, that she couldn't have been saved. He said that they had gotten a slight pulse at the hospital by hooking her up to machines but they didn't know the heart was ruptured so it wasn't pumping blood. He said that often families (in that area) don't like the thought of doctors hooking their relatives up to machines and forcing them to live when they were dead, so they pronounced her dead at the hospital even though she was dead when we got her to the hospital.

My question is this - does anyone have any guesses as far as the name of the hereditary congenital condition that made her die?  I still have nightmares about this after 26 years and would like to read about the condition. Her mother has since died, so I have no contact to find out from the autopsy. Her father died suddenly when she was young. He laid down on the couch and was gone instantly. I suspect he died in the same way, but don't know for sure. Any wild guess as to what this was that killed her would be much appreciated.

[grendslori]

Chances are she died from a Hypertophic Cardiomyopathy which is, more times than not, hereditary in nature.(Back in the 80s this was a new disease process, only first discovered in the 60s.) The fact that her father also died when she was young would certainly point in that direction. There would have been nothing that you could have done to save her. My daughter also suffered from this disease and received a new heart. One of my close friends had two daughters and a husband with the disease as well; the youngest died the same way that your friend died, she was only 13 years old at the time. If I can answer any more questions please let me know. You need to get past the nightmares and stop trying to take on the responsibilty of what happened to your friend.  

[grendslori]

I just noticed that your friends died in 1983; that was the same year my daughter was diagnosed with HCM at 6 years of age.

[jfreema]

Thanks much for your reply and reassurance. I had heard of HCM and it had goten my attention. I wasn't sure, though, if it caused the rupture like she had. Does it cause ruptures?  Thanks again!

[PikaPika88]

Hi, I know it is hard when someone die in front of you and she is your friend.  So many years, it passed.  If you're still waking up in nightmares, you should get some counselling and seek help.  It seems grendslori has answered your question.  I hope you'll feel better.