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What Causes Fatal During The First Triathlon?
My 40 yr old sister, died while doing her first triathalon. She s a PE Coach, trained for almost a year with a trainer, healthiest she has even been in her life. Autopsy showed nothing. no clot, no clogged arteries, no heart attack, no embolism...ect... further testing being done. What could she have died from?
Wed, 12 Nov 2014
I am sorry to hear about your loss. Unfortunately enough such incidents, also known as sudden cardiac deaths, are known to occur in healthy athletes. It so happens that running a triathlon is quite demanding on the heart. Like any muscle, the heart muscles stretch and contract in sequence. If the muscle is optimally stretched, the force of contraction is more. So in other words, to increase the force of contraction, body increases the stretch of the heart muscles. But if the stretch goes beyond a certain limit, the muscles are no longer able to contract. In a similar way, the heart suddenly failed to pump while gearing up for pumping more according to the demand of the situation. With the failure of the heart, death came fast as the brain does not have any oxygen reserve or food reserve and failed without getting its required blood supply. In such a case, post mortem might not give any findings as in her case.
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