[News] Sudden Death

[zuoom]

Teen triathlete collapses and dies after race

By Jeanette Wang & Lee Hui Chieh
Jun 25, 2007
The Straits Times

A PROMISING teenage triathlete collapsed after crossing the finish line in a South-east Asia Games selection race yesterday and died soon after.

Thaddeus Cheong, 17, a first-year student at Raffles Junior College, had just swum 1.5km, cycled 40km and run 10km at Changi.

He clocked a personal best of 2hr 9min, and came in third. Then he collapsed.

The boy's parents, George and Angeline Cheong, both 46, were present and rushed to their elder son. Their younger boy, Thomas, 13, is also a triathlon enthusiast.

Mrs Cheong told The Straits Times last night: 'We did not know his heart had stopped beating. We kept calling him, but there was no answer.'

Thaddeus was unconscious and foaming at the mouth when he was taken to Changi General Hospital (CGH). Doctors were unable to resuscitate him and pronounced him dead at 10.55am.

Police have classified it as a case of unnatural death, and a coroner's inquiry will be held.

Family members, team-mates and friends were in shock as news of the teen's death spread yesterday.

By afternoon, his school and church friends had started posting messages of grief online in their blogs.

Yesterday's SEA Games trial was the first of two to decide the two men and two women triathletes to represent Singapore in the year-end regional sports meet.

Thaddeus was among eight men and three women who started the race at about 6.45am at the Tanah Merah Country Club's swimming pool.

Triathlon Association of Singapore senior executive and assistant national coach Jerry Seah said Thaddeus looked confident, happy and ready to go before the flag-off.

Participant Sikhander Singh, who finished sixth behind Thaddeus, said: 'He looked fresh throughout the race. I had never seen him look better on the run.

'It was his best year so far in his triathlon career. I am very sad to see him go.'

Describing her son as an achiever, Mrs Cheong said: 'When he wanted something, he would work hard to get it.'

He was so keen to book a SEA Games slot that he had doubled his training stints to twice daily during the school holidays.

Raffles JC's cross-country teacher-in-charge, Mr Tay Meng Kiat, said: 'He was a very good child and well-liked by his team-mates.'

College principal Winston Hodge said: 'We are shocked and deeply saddened by Thaddeus' sudden passing, and our hearts and thoughts are with his family and friends.'

Among those who paid tribute online was a boy named Yao Khuan, who said they had been friends since Primary 5.

He wrote on his blog: 'Thaddeus, if you can hear me...I'd like to tell you that you're the coolest guy, and that I've always looked up to you, and I hope that it is a better place in heaven.''

Mrs Cheong said: 'Thaddeus is a very, very good boy. He is every mother's dream. He is a no-nonsense person, will tell you what he means, short and sharp and quickly.

'But now, he has just left without saying goodbye.'

jwang@sph.com.sg

huichieh@sph.com.sg

source : Asiaone News

============

woah, sad case. so sudden. young man at his prime... just die like that.

[zuoom]

Army regular collapses and dies after half-marathon

Sun, Aug 26, 2007
AsiaOne

An army regular collapsed and died after he completed the half-marathon in the Singapore Bay Run this morning.
Captain Ho Si Qiu, 25, a platoon commander from Officer Cadet School, crossed the finish line of his 21-km run at about 7 am, and collapsed.

"The on-site medical team attended to Cpt Ho immediately and he was sent to Singapore General Hospital at 7.23am after full resuscitative efforts," said a statement from SAFRA National Service Association and the Army and Singapore Sports Council.

"The ambulance reached the hospital at 7.35am and Cpt Ho was pronounced dead at 8.07am after sustained resuscitation efforts by the SGH doctors. The cause of his death is being investigated."

The regular serviceman was the latest fit and active person to die suddenly in strenueous sports.

At least four others have died this year while running, practising taekwondo or working out in the gym, according to The Straits Times.

The most recent casualty was tennage triathlete Thaddeus Cheong, 17, who collapsed and died after completing a gruelling tirathlon two months ago.

His death prompted the setting up of a Sports Safety Committee last month. It is tasked to review safety measures and recommend a comprehensive safety framework, and has submitted a preliminary report to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports.

Over 70,000 runners, including Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, took part in the annual event, now into its 16th year.

The Singapore Bay Run, which comprises the Safra Sheares Bridge Run and Army Half-Marathon, also featured a 12-km competitive category for the first time, and a 6km fun run.

Participants, who were flagged off at 5.30 am, ran from Esplanade Drive up the Benjamin Sheares Bridge and continued through Marina Bay, Chinatown and East Coast Park, and finished at the National Day Parade floating platform.

Medical support was provided by 130 army medical personnel deployed along the route, and 16 ambulances, each equipped with a defibrillator, were on standby.

via : asiaone

another sudden death incident.
the other incident couple of months back - http://www.celicasg.org/index.php?topic=818.0

read in MCF that he did the AHM in 90 odd minutes. which is a decently fast timing, but it's quite a normal for good runners to achieve that.

young man, only 25.

discussed on asiaone forum:

Not all human are born to do well in distance running. Such fatality is gradually become a regular fixture in endurance-related events in Singapore. Better scrap such meaningless events which promote nothing but personal ego and in some unfortunately cases, affect some families' Sunday, in this case Cpt Ho's...

A.T.

The organizer can only do that much, the rest is up to the participant. If he or she feels that their body cannot take the extra pressure they should slow down.
No need to stop this event just because of this unfortunate incident.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ILostMyBall View Post
The Way I See It:

I though the Army should step up and increase the frequency of running in their training programmes?
Army have running events every day or week.

They have morning run.

Evening PT

And IPPT etc

So everyone who are suppose to run had run enough.

Eh, I did not said stop the event. I only said do more medical check up.

[klumpkeTT]

check out http://health.asiaone.com/Health/Fitness/Watch+Your+Body/Story/Why+young+hearts+fail.html

essentially, sudden deaths are rare BUT they do happen. There is usually an underlying undetected cardiac pathology, which may be asymptomatic but becomes fatal when under stress. It could be a congenital abnormality or an acquired one.

[zuoom]

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

One of the most common cardiac causes of sudden death in young people is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy - an ominous thickening of the heart muscle beyond the normal 1.2cm width.

what would cause this? (as in acquired one)... lifestyle? habits?

dun know the figures.. but do feel that such sudden deaths have become more common.

[klumpkeTT]

prob more sudden deaths now in media focus.
acquired like viral infections causing eg pericarditis, myocarditis..etc

[zuoom]

ya. where the media spotlight shines, it becomes more "popular"/"common".

ah, i remember last time due medical checkup, army stuff. they notice that in my health booklet that i have the heart murmur stamp chopped. next thing i know, i was hooked up to those ECG stuff.. rest in bed, cannot move type.

then after a while, the print out comes out. the doc noted a very slight blip on the chart that was not too common.

so back to the bed, and another test. can't remember much after that. but the end result was "CLEAR"... and on to active training.

dun think many go thru the test as there was only a handful of us at the medical center.

[zuoom]

just heard over the radio this morning.

the Italian died. the Englishman survived. (soccer news)

both are young, and in their prime.

what's happening?

[klumpkeTT]

what's this Italian & englishman??

[zuoom]

mistake. Spanish n an english. plus an African (Zambia).



via : http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/29/2018120.htm

Spanish soccer starlet dies of heart attack

Posted August 29, 2007 08:30:00
Antonio Puerta is remembered

Football supporters light candles around a picture of Sevilla defender Antonio Puerta, who died today after suffering a heart attack. (AFP: Cristina Quicler)

Spanish footballer, Antonio Puerta, has died in hospital three days after collapsing on the field during a Primera Liga match on Saturday.

The 22-year-old had been in intensive care after suffering a heart attack while playing for his club Sevilla.

Puerta was considered to be a rising star of Spanish football and had already played one match for his country.

"He was a magnificent footballer and had a great sporting future," former Sevilla coach Joaquin Caparros, now of Athletic Bilbao, told Radio Marca.

The dramatic pictures of Puerta's collapse were flashed around the country and his predicament, with daily medical updates, has dominated the news cycles.

via : http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=276829

Football was last night mourning the death of a third player in the space of 10 days after Chaswe Nsofwa, a former Zambia international, collapsed and died of heart failure during a training session with his Israeli club side, Hapoel Beersheba. The tragedy came less than 24 hours after Clive Clarke, the Leicester City player on loan from Sunderland, suffered a heart attack during Tuesday's League Cup tie at Nottingham Forest. Clarke was recovering in hospital yesterday.

On Tuesday afternoon the Spanish side Sevilla said their left-back, Antonio Puerta, had died after suffering "five cardio-respiratory stoppages". Little more than a week earlier Walsall's 16-year-old youth-team player Anton Reid inexplicably collapsed on the training ground and died. It is unprecedented that the sport should lose three players in such a short period and it prompted a demand that compulsory heart screening be brought in for all professional players in Britain.

Andy Scott, whose 13-year career was ended by heart problems, called on the Football Association and Professional Footballers' Association to introduce mandatory cardiac testing for all players.

"There is clearly no reason why a young person should die when they are in the prime of their career," said Scott, Brentford's assistant manager. "It's complete ignorance that this has not been taken further. This is an ideal opportunity now to make it compulsory for all players to be screened. How many times is it going to have to happen? Everyone knows it's going on but it's getting someone at the top to get off their backsides." The FA described such a move as a "strategic decision for the whole game". No one at the PFA could be contacted last night.

Nsofwa, a 27-year-old striker, was training in temperatures approaching 40C when he collapsed. Rescue workers spent several minutes trying to restart his heart before paramedics arrived. Attempts to revive Nsofwa, including using an external pacemaker, proved unsuccessful and the player was pronounced dead when he arrived at Soroka hospital.

[klumpkeTT]

some of these atheletes also take anabolic steroids which also increase the risk of a cardiac event eg heart attack, heart failure. good example is WWE wrestler Eddie Guerrero..

[zuoom]

hmm. did they take steroids?

btw, i thought some amount of steroid actually helps the body?

[Silver Bullet]

No lar..in future, they'l "build" battlions of Universal Soldiers fr the dead liow lor...wahaha...

[zuoom]

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/320318/1/.html

SAF logistics officer dies after 1.2km run
Posted: 02 January 2008 1730 hrs

SINGAPORE: Major (MAJ) Tan Yit Guan, a SAF logistics officer, collapsed at 8.20am at Kranji Camp on Wednesday morning.

MAJ Tan was talking with his colleagues after completing a 1.2km self-paced run when he suddenly collapsed.

He was given prompt medical attention and sent to the National University Hospital at about 8.45am. Efforts by the SAF medical team to resuscitate him en route were unsuccessful. MAJ Tan was pronounced dead at 9.30am.

MINDEF and the SAF extend their deepest condolences to MAJ Tan's family, and will be assisting them in their time of grief.

MINDEF is investigating the incident.

CNA/so

=============

and something from :www.menshealth.com

The Fit Man's Heart Threat
A genetic flaw that afflicts a shockingly large number of men. Are you at risk?
By: Joshua Davis

On a crisp, sunny July morning in San Francisco, my good friend and jogging buddy Bill Goggins began his push to post a 3-hour marathon. I'd decided not to join him; Bill always ran too fast for me. On any given jog, he'd invariably say, "How about we pick it up a bit?" It took me a year to develop the mental fortitude to resist.

 

The day before the race, I met Bill for lunch. He looked great, and he was clearly happy. The next morning, he got off to a good start. For the first 71/2 miles, he averaged a little over 7 minutes a mile. Runners generally slow as they tire. Not Bill. At the halfway mark, he sped up. And then, at the marathon's 24th mile, Bill smiled for the cameras and, mid-stride, dropped dead.

 

It was inconceivable. Bill was 43 years old and, by all accounts, in the best shape of his life. For as long as I'd known him, he'd stay out late drinking Fernet Branca, a bitter Italian liquor, and still meet me at 7 the next morning looking fresh and indomitable. He'd run a step ahead of me, glancing over his shoulder to tell me stories about the people he'd laughed with through the night. And though I had surely been asleep while he was having these grand adventures, I still couldn't keep up.

 

During the 6 months after Bill's death, I felt numb. But slowly, my denial morphed into a series of questions. Today I'm left with just one: Why?

 

In December 2005, 8 months before Bill died, he and I went for an early-morning run along the Embarcadero, the walk way beside San Francisco Bay. The air smelled of salt water and creosote from the wharf pilings. Sixty years ago, the area would have been crowded with longshoremen and ships from around the world. Today it's dotted with joggers in fleece jackets and leggings.

 

Back in 1951, an enterprising University of California at Berkeley doctor initiated a study of the men working these wharves. The researcher, Ralph S. Paffenbarger Jr., M.D., wanted to know whether cargo handlers, who performed strenuous physical labor all day, had different rates of heart disease than men with more-sedentary jobs had. He did an initial exam and then, 18 years later, checked them all again. He discovered that the less-active workers had a 27 percent higher death rate than the cargo handlers did. In a seminal 1986 report that laid the groundwork for the exercise boom that followed, Dr. Paffenbarger concluded that physical exercise prolongs life.

[zuoom]

A NATIONAL Service recruit died after he fainted during a 2 km walk on Pulau Tekong on Tuesday morning.

Recruit Andrew Cheah Wei Siong, from the basic military training centre fainted at 8.35am during a 2km walk training activity at Pulau Tekong, said a Ministry of Defence statement.

He was rushed to the medical centre and arrived within five minutes.

'He was given immediate medical attention by the doctors. At 9.24am, REC Cheah was heli-evacuated to the Singapore General Hospital (SGH). The SAF medical team continued to resuscitate him en route. REC Cheah was pronounced dead at 10.50am in SGH,' said the statement.

Mindef says it will assist the family and is investigating the incident.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/STIStory_246352.html

read via : http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=286739

[tags]  : NSF, Army, sudden death

[zuoom]

i recall the seeing her in the obituary page yesterday. was wondering if it was another case of road accident.
nope, instead this. "sudden death".

what's happening? why seemingly healthy people are dropping just like that?

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=288023

S'pore doctor dies at Melbourne ice-skating rink 
She had spent 'quality time' with family before death
 
A YOUNG Singaporean doctor collapsed and died on 6 Jun in Melbourne.

Dr Nishal Kaur Bhullar, 25, was ice-skating with some friends. When she went to the side of the rink for a rest, she collapsed.

Her father, Dr Pritam Singh, a well-known gynaecologist and gynaecologic oncologist here, told The New Paper that, so far, the pathologist could not tell the family why his daughter died.

 
Dr Bhullar, who graduated from the University of Melbourne one-and-a-half years ago, had been working as a medical officer at the Western Hospital in Footscray, a suburb 20 minutes west of Melbourne.

Said her sister, Miss Shireen Kaur Bhullar, 20, who is studying for an arts degree in the same university: 'She loved her job. She had always wanted to be a doctor. She was inspired by our father.'

The sisters were very close.

Miss Bhullar, who is in her second year of university, lived five minutes away from her sister in the Parkville suburb.

Both sisters had attended CHIJ. Dr Bhullar went on to Victoria Junior College before going to Melbourne for her medical degree.

Miss Bhullar left Singapore after her O levels to study first in Adelaide and then in Melbourne.

'During the years when we lived apart, we used to rack up huge phone bills. We would call each other three to four times a week and talk for an hour each time,' she said.

She got a call from her sister's friends on Friday night saying that Dr Bhullar had collapsed.

'They asked me for the telephone numbers of my parents and aunt who lives in Melbourne and asked if it would be all right for them to call. I said 'yes'. Then they told me to go straight to the hospital,' she said.

An ambulance had sent her sister to the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

When she got to the hospital, her aunt, who is her mother's elder sister, was already there.

'They called at about 8pm. I was with a friend and I just dropped everything and rushed to the hospital. By the time I got there, she had passed away,' she said, sounding calm.

One thing that gives her and her family some peace is that Dr Bhullar had spent a lot of quality time with their parents before she died.

Early last month, she surprised her parents with a visit home for 10 days.

'She had asked me if I wanted to go with her, but I couldn't as I had study commitments,' said Miss Bhullar.

During the trip home, her sister went with her parents for a cousin's engagement in Malaysia.

MET RELATIVES

'It was a two-day trip and she managed to meet up with a lot of our relatives,' said Miss Bhullar.

Then in the later part of May, their parents visited Melbourne.

'My mother stayed for two weeks and my father came for a week,' said Miss Bhullar.

Dr Singh, who appeared calm during the wake for his daughter last night, said: 'My daughter had zero health issues. She was healthy and fine until the day she collapsed. She was a very special girl.'

At an earlier memorial service, Miss Bhullar was struck by how many people thought her sister was special.

'They said she always had a smile on her face, was fun-loving, always lent a hand to someone in need. My sister had this ability to be very welcoming to people. She had the gift of understanding,' she said.

Many people turned up at the wake in the family home in Upper Bukit Timah last night.

Said Miss Bhullar: 'My sister was a much loved person. And we will get through this.'
 
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,167362,00.html?