Follow
Please add the profiles of people who died suddenly and unexpectedly with NO specific cause listed on death certificate or other resource.
Sudden death (SD) can be defined as a witnessed, non-traumatic, and unexpected fatal event occurring within 1 h of the onset of symptoms in an apparently healthy individual or an unwitnessed death that occurred in the 12–24 h prior to the individual last being seen in good health. Sudden Unexpected Death in the Young (SUDY) aged 1–40 years, is a rare occurrence, affecting around 2–3 in every 100 000 young people every year in Europe.
There are many possible causes but many are associated with cardiac arrest (Wikipedia Cardiac arrest).
Sudden death may refer to: (From: Wikipedia – Sudden death)
1. Medical (such as:)
- Cardiac Arrest, also known as sudden cardiac death, natural death from cardiac causes.
- Approximately 326,200 people experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital every year, according to the AHA’s 2015 statistics. The survival rate is not good—only about 10.6% live through the event, and only 8.3% keep good neurological function.
- From: CPR Certified Indigo Medical Training Blog – Causes of Sudden Death
- Sudden cardiac death of athletes
- Sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death in young athletes. Estimates vary, but some reports suggest that about 1 in 50,000 to 1 in 80,000 young athletes die of sudden cardiac death each year.
- Causes can include: thickened heart muscle, heart rhythm disorders, blunt chest injury, congenital heart defect.
- From: Mayo Clinic - Sudden death in young people; Heart problems often blamed. By Mayo Clinic Staff
- Sudden infant death syndrome
- Sudden unexplained death in childhood (SUDC) is the sudden death of a child 12 months of age or older that remains unexplained after a thorough case investigation, including performance of a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and review of the clinical history.
- According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2018, 392 children between the ages of 1-18 years died suddenly without a clear cause of death determined. Most of these children were toddlers, aged 1-4 years; an incidence of 1.4 deaths per 100,000 toddler aged children.
- From: NORD – Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood.
- Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy
- Studies suggest that each year there are about 1.16 cases of SUDEP for every 1,000 people with epilepsy, although estimates vary.
- Most, but not all, cases of SUDEP occur during or immediately after a seizure. The exact cause is not known, but possible factors might include: breathing (apnea that last too long), heart rhythm, which might cause cardiac arrest or a combination of one or more of these.
- From: CDC – Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP)
- Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, a sudden unexpected death mainly during sleep
2.Sports
3. Arts and entertainment
- Film and television
- Music
4 Literature
5 Other
Some of the causes of sudden, unexpected death are rare, but others are quite common. Stroke kills approximately 140,000 people per year in the United States, for example, while heart disease kills more than 600,000.
- Stroke / Cerebral Vascular Accident / CVA
- Stroke isn’t as deadly as heart disease in the United States—only about 140,000 people die of stroke every year—but more than 795,000 people per year suffer a stroke. Approximately 75% of victims are over the age of 65.
- Pulmonary Embolism
- The data on how many people experience pulmonary embolism isn’t clear—some estimates say as many as 900,000 people experience pulmonary embolism, and about 60,000-100,000 people die from it, every year in the United States. Of these, about 10-30% die within a month of receiving their diagnosis. Most frighteningly of all, sudden death is the first symptom about 25% of patients experience.
- ' Pulmonary embolism occurs when something—usually a blood clot—blocks an artery in the lung. Usually, the blood clots form deep in the veins and arteries, usually in the leg, and travel to the lungs.
- Pulmonary embolisms aren’t always deadly—sometimes the clots are small enough to cause damage but not death. Larger blood clots can be fatal, however, and fast treatment is essential.
- Aortic Rupture
- A rare cause of death in the United states, but about 90% of people who experience aortic rupture die from it.
- The aorta is the largest artery in the body. It is also the toughest, designed to handle a large volume of blood. When the walls of the aorta weaken, they can bulge outward, creating an aortic aneurism.
- Not all aortic aneurisms burst. Sometimes, however, an aneurysm that has existed for years will suddenly rip, and when this occurs, it is a major medical emergency. Aortic aneurisms drain large volumes of blood away from other organs, and the problems that can occur include heart attacks, stroke, severe kidney damage, and ultimately death.
Resources and additional reading:
- MDPI – Sudden Death in Adults: A Practical Flow Chart for Pathologist Guidance. Published 9 July 2021. (This article belongs to the Special Issue Forensic Science and Legal Medicine: A Multidisciplinary Puzzle!)
- JEMS – Five Common Causes of Sudden Unexpected Death Every EMS Provider Should Know. By Corey M Slovis, MD, FACP, FACEP, FAAEM, Jared McKinney, MD, Jeremy Brywczynski, MD, Thomas Lardaro, MD, MPH. 1/20/2015
- AHA Journals – Circulation. By Douglas P. Zipes, Hein J.J. Wellens. Published 24 Nov 1998
- Mayo Clinic - Sudden death in young people; Heart problems often blamed. By Mayo Clinic Staff