Sudden deaths in Illinois girls has me worried

I live near St. Louis, MO. USA. On October 27th, a third grader in a nearby city died suddenly. Just slid down in her desk and died. The coroner said she had an infected heart valve. www.ksdk.com...
On November 16th, a 16 year old girl died on the schoolbus. Everyone thought she was sleeping. The coroner believes she had a heart defect that suddenly caused cardiac arrest.
www.ksdk.com...
The thing is, these girls live within 20 miles of each other. I wonder if there's something in the water, or some other commonality; or if it's just a coincidence.
Anybody else having girls suddenly dropping dead of heart problems?

(edit: added second link, oops)

[edit on 18-11-2005 by Busymind]

Yes I am sure there was a case in Australian news recently, I will have to find it.

Cardiomyopathy causes these symptoms though. I had a friend who was 14 and hit in the head with a cricket ball and just died from a heart attack on the spot. He had family history of it. His brother, my daughters godfather died recently at 40 years of age same cause.


Perhaps its a case of heart disease becoming more apparent this generation in young children.

Not to feed your fear, but I found a couple more.

14 yearold girl Dies Trying Out For High School Basketball Team

Kiki is the third student athlete to die suddenly in the past three years. All three had passed school physicals. Merridy Stillwell was running track, completed a mile, and then collapsed and died. Steven Brillhart was playing soccer, sat on the bench, collapsed and died.

Teen dies while playing badminton

A 17-year-old girl is dead after collapsing during badminton practice at a Toronto high school.

Ah this definitly is an interesting dilemma. Good find maybe its just a coincidence (which is doubtful but possible). If it seems like they had a family history for things like this so my guess is as long as your family doesn't have a history of it then don't worry. But if so or just to be on the safe side drink water out of a purifier and ingest (eat or intake) more lycopene. Hint tomatoes are a great source and so is Heinz ketchup. I would also take one asprin ( if possible) because they say that decreases your chance for heart attack. I heard on the radio a good way to measure your risk for heart attack is to get a tape measurer and measure your risk by turning your conculsion into a percentage (example: if bob had a 32 inch waist he would be a 32% risk for heart attack. Another thing try to lower coffee and caffine intake along with fatty salty foods( Whopper, or Big Mac, this includes bacon too!) Well I hope this helps and I do know someone in the medical field so I will try to get some info and if you have any questions for other procautionary things with heart or something you are welcome to u2u me. Hope that helps

i live in rockford illinois and there isnt anything wierd really going on here. i wouldnt get all freaked out about it. keep your blood pressure down


Kind regards,
Digitalgrl

I should have added that I'm a little worried because I have my mitral valve doesn't always work like it should. Mostly that just means sometimes it feels like somebody dropped an alka seltzer into my chest, and I have to take antibiotics before I have my teeth cleaned.

Mayet, good point. I hadn't considered cardiomyopathy. JoJo, thanks for the health tips. I'm not so sure about that measurement thing. Makeitso, thanks -that's just the kind of info I was looking for. I'm sure people die from heart problems all the time, I just wonder if they normally come in groups? (Or get reported in groups, perhaps?)

Bad luck and quirk of fate seems to be the order of the day. Unless the coronor is in on some sort of conspiracy. In both cases, a abnormality of the heart cause a rythem disturbance (The usual suspect is Ventricular Tachycardia) and that was that. SOme kids are alas walking timebombs waiting to go off. We transported a kid that was hit in the chest and went into VTach. he got lucky a paramedic unit happened to have stopped to check out the game, hooked him up and cardiverted him. Cardioversion differes from the dramatic shocking you see on TV. Its alot less Jules, and you sync it to the heart beat. If you fail to sync it, you usualy shock them into Ventricular Fibrillation and thats when you see the big Kahuna shocks

I know he was not as young as those girls, but in January 2004, a soccer player for Benfica died during a game, falling like he was already dead. He was a professional player for some years and had obviously many medical exams, all players are carefully examined when they change clubs.

Because of that, here in Portugal, during some weeks all people talked about that, and in TV interviews with doctors they all said that this is something relatively common, people may have a fault in the heart that never gets to be discovered until they die because of that.

The soccer player was 24-year-old Miklos Feher.

Could it be the water? My ENTIRE family is very ill of stomach problems- young and old alike. I'm not just talking a week or so, i'm talking 6 weeks and still il. I caught whatever this is the end of September...and still have it. I suspect the water.

Whats to say those illinois girls didnt start out like this? I am going to get to the bottom of this one (no pun intended) and when i do and i find out what it is, this government is going to hear from me.
None of us have eaten the same thing- so its not food poison, however it does feel like it. We're not getting any better...No one is poisioning us! (I already checked)

If anyone knows the symptoms they had, please let me know.

Too bad about those otherwise healthy girls.

My son: going on 6 weeks
Myself: going on 8 weeks
My grandaughter: going on 7 weeks
Daughter in law- Going on 8 weeks
Youngest son: going on 7 weeks

*We donot eat together, but live in the same town in the North east.

Chicago is close.

i work in patient registration in the ER at a hospital in IL just 3rd shift on the weekends while i am in college. (not for anything in the medical field though ) anyways, i asked one of the Emergency department doctors what they thought about this. from what i am told, they said that there is nothing to be up in arms about concerning this and that they have seen WAY wierder than this lol. more than likely it is just a fluke and i brought up the question concerning the water and one doctor in particular said that if there is anything wrong environmentally in the area whether it be water, insects, or viruses that they recieve weekly notices from the health department and some other place that i dont remember off hand and so far have not be notified of anything to do with the water supply. i just thought i would let ya know. it does seem a little creepy when you first look at it though.

Kind Regards,
DigitalGrl

Boy I know what it is like to have stomach problems I was born with achelichia (not sure if that is spelled right) and the valve that holds food in the stomach and prevents it from being vomitated up durring digestion was not working right ( I don't remember the name to that valve darn memory blocks) anyway doctors didn't want to opperate since I was young so I have suffered through it all my life. Then recently I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis ( I think you understand that spelling isn;t my forte) anyway I have gotten used to stomach problems. Here is advice I hope this helps: Take 4 table spoons coca cola syrup (not the pop its sold over the counter) and mix with exactly one cup ice and add some water (not a lot because it will be less effective) also when you eat or drink take it slower that way your body will accept it more also eat from the Brat diet (this is a special diet for people with extreme stomach distress, vomating, ect.) the brat diet consists of: clear liquids (in other words you can see through them), jello (the one that isn't very sweet as sugar has a bad reaction with an upset stomach), white bread/ toast (you may put on butter but very little), tea (Lipton or green tea is preferred for this case do to the antioxidants that could obsorb the possible poisons or object that is possibly in the water and you may put in some milk just not alot since dairy products are bad for the vomiting) and that is the brat diet once this passes (whatever it is although it probally is the water since this happened where I use too live in Youngstown Ohio it seems that the water wasn't treated right causing stomach flu) you can go back to normal diets. Hope that helped

[edit on 20-11-2005 by JoJo the religious man]

Originally posted by Busymind
I should have added that I'm a little worried because I have my mitral valve doesn't always work like it should. Mostly that just means sometimes it feels like somebody dropped an alka seltzer into my chest, and I have to take antibiotics before I have my teeth cleaned.

My husband has the same thing and I have occasional tachycardia. You DO need to keep your weight and blood pressure down, because this can lead to other things.

But it sounds like you see the doc regularly so you are at less risk for sudden cardiac death than others. The kids... that's so tragic, but it's not unknown. Here in Texas we have occasional sports deaths in teensl from cardiac failure.

Mayet, good point. I hadn't considered cardiomyopathy. JoJo, thanks for the health tips. I'm not so sure about that measurement thing. Makeitso, thanks -that's just the kind of info I was looking for. I'm sure people die from heart problems all the time, I just wonder if they normally come in groups? (Or get reported in groups, perhaps?)

It's more of an "attention" issue. You notice one and if the next one falls within a certain time period, you notice that case as well. And you alert for a third case (no matter how far away it might be or how marginally related) because of the folk knowledge "things come in threes."

There is a recognized trend for youth to be afflicted with "age-related diseases" - that run the gamut from heart problems to osteoporsis and atherosclerosis.

And yes, there is an epidemic - the World Bank, World Health Organization, and Lancet all report a chronic disease epidemic in the world. And estimate 400 million deaths in the next 10 years.

The 'effects' of epidemic chronic disease range from digestive problems to early death from stroke or heart attack.

IMO - your observations are very legitimate, and certainly - exactly what we would expect to see under the circumstances.


.

When I was working at the ME's office we would see sudden cardiac deaths all the time. These you are talking about that are in young girls around adolescense though are rare, its probably the most unlikely time for someone to die suddenly of natural causes. congenital undetected heart abnormalities would rank up there though as causes of death in that age group for natural death. Cardiomyopathies and conduction system abnormalities as well. Some of them we never get to the bottom of because they are congenital arrythmias with no anatomic findings. Its more theoretical really.
As far as coronary artery disease, its always a good idea to pay attention to your family history and do some preventative stuff. The Sudden deaths due to that are usually past age 35 (mainly 45-65).

When there are problems with water the authorities here issue a "boiled water advisory". Just means that the water should be boiled for 10 minutes to destroy any bacteria that the chlorine didn't get. So if you are really worried about your drinking water boil it and any other water you plan to use for cooking. If there is something in the water that they haven't found, this should kill it. Try to store it in glass jars as plastic can outgas, and if you are worried about aluminum content, don't use cookware with aluminum content.

There was a guy a few years ago, he was a B-1 pilot, so he had undergone many physical exams with no problems found. He was in his late 30s or early 40s, and had been healthy his entire life. They deployed out to Guam for an exercise and he suddenly fell critically ill. He just collapsed one day. They air evaced him to Hawaii, to the Army hospital here, where they were putting four pints of blood a day into him, until he died. It turns out that he had a heart condition that was completely dormant and undetectable, until he got to Guam, where something there caused it to activate. I never heard what it was, or what caused it though, but it's a good example of how you can be perfectly healthy, and have a major life threatening condition and never know it. If he had never gone to Guam, he may have lived a long healthy life and never known about this condition.

Zaphod58 wrote:
It turns out that he had a heart condition that was completely dormant and undetectable, until he got to Guam, where something there caused it to activate.

And that sort of underscores my original post. What might cause a dormant heart condition to activate?

Originally posted by Busymind
And that sort of underscores my original post. What might cause a dormant heart condition to activate?

Anything and everything, from a slight drop in syrum electrolytes, to a shock to the chest etc etc etc. With rythem disturbances, it can even just be a case of bad luck.

Thats one fo the reasons you are seeing all these automated defribilators in big building, schools, and airplanes. This type of heart issue can happen at anytime

Originally posted by Busymind

Zaphod58 wrote:
It turns out that he had a heart condition that was completely dormant and undetectable, until he got to Guam, where something there caused it to activate.

And that sort of underscores my original post. What might cause a dormant heart condition to activate?

The human body is a complex system, and is affected by numerous factors. For example, a person may successfully fight off an underlying infection until exposed to environmental contamination.

For a better understanding of how it all works together, and how environmental contaminations can trigger fatal events, check out Environmental Health Perspectives.

Thank you, Soficrow. I keep trying to let this thread peter out. I mean, my questions have been answered; time to move on. And then along comes people like you and Fred, adding intelligent points to the conversation (and links, too!) that should be acknowledged.
So, thanks.