Have you experienced a lot of people dying out of the blue?

[Selmaandpatty]

I was supporting a neighbour in his early 70s, helped him with his Alexa, occasionally grabbed a bit of shopping, that sort of stuff, as he'd recently had an operation.
Otherwise, he was fine, no serious illness, very independent and so on. He didn't drink or smoke.
His wife passed away last year unfortunately and I know he's been quite lonely. He'd often want you to stay and chat for longer, he was a really nice man.
I popped round at the weekend as the Alexa wasn't working.
I was told this morning he's died. I'm still waiting to find out how, but I'm so sad.
I don't see early 70s as elderly, it's not like he was 90+.
He wasn't frail at all, but there must be been something underlying we were not aware of.
I just keep thinking about him, I only saw him a few days ago and he was absolutely fine. It's just a massive shock, he asked me to stay for a cup of tea but I had things to do. I didn't know that'd be the last time I saw him.
Have you had many unexpected incidents like this?
It just scares me as anyone can leave us as any time, life is precious.

My parents were old, but died within 2 weeks of each other. Mum was ill, but dad was just old. He went first and I'm a firm believer that he chose to go rather than live without her. That's how I'd like to go.

I think it's relatively common for the second spouse to die fairly quickly after the first, especially after a long relationship. I know people don't really die of a broken heart, but it's almost like the remaining one doesn't really want to be here any more.

Wow, death over 50 is standard! You must let my medical team know. I have cancer at 55 and they are throwing the kitchen sink at it, because I am ‘young’ and they want to give me another 30 years of life.

Early 70s is also ‘young’ in my book. I would be shocked if someone I know died suddenly at that age. My uncle just died quite quickly in his early 80s and we are all so shocked as he lived a very full and independent life. I would have expected him to still have another decade. In my family the only people who have died before 80 have had a serious illness like cancer, so it was not sudden or unexpected. My father died at 69 from cancer but very peacefully. He just fell asleep in his chair and didn’t wake up. That was a few months ahead of schedule but we were very relieved he didn’t suffer.

Yes I've had 2 friends in their early fifties die suddenly in the past couple of years and another in early 60's. Causes were blood clot in lungs, sudden heart failure and bleed on the brain.

The underlying heart conditions with no obvious symptoms seem to be very common :(
Yes, it does seem common that people pass fairly quickly after their spouse does. He was only talking about her on Sunday actually :(

I've lost the link now so I'm paraphrasing, but I was reading something from ONS that said 50% of the population live to 80-something.

Which means half of the population don't. It was something like 2,000 in every 100,000 people die at 50, and the incidence gradually increases by age from there.

But the stats are better than 30 years ago (when it was more like 4,000 in every 100,000) if that's any comfort.

(Anybody feel free to correct me if I'm summarising this incorrectly.)

it does seem common that people pass fairly quickly after their spouse does

Grief can exacerbate existing cardiac problems. There is a real physical aspect to shock/grief which (obviously) has a greater impact on the elderly.

A close friend dropped dead at 33 with undiagnosed heart failure. My aunt died suddenly at 60 from a brain haemorrhage. A lovely bloke from my school died in his sleep in at 27 which was also heart failure. An ex's saint ex died at 38 from an asthma attack. Thankfully that's it. I would rather die suddenly than linger for the most part of a decade with dementia like my grandmother but at least she was in her nineties and had really lived her life rather than having it cut short.

Don't forget that "common among anecdotes" is different to "common among the population".

Your parents are very young! I'm 43 with a four year old, I hope when I get to 50 people don't start to worry about me dropping dead! 70 is no age at all, both my parents are that age and still as active as they were thirty years ago (and in my eyes no older.)

No, I think I am very fortunate in that I haven't known any 'sudden deaths' ... some of my relatives have died young (cancer) but we've had time to come to terms with it. My DF lived to 90 & my mother is still going strong, all my DGPs lived to a good age. I did have a colleague at work years ago who died very suddenly and I can still remember the absolute shock ... made worse because of the circumstances and the fact we were all (including him) Trustees of the Company Pension scheme.

I am 50 and in the past few years I’ve had five people within my friendship group die (all within their 40s and early 50s). One was my closest friend. Two colleagues in my team the same age bracket in previous years to that. Five of these left behind school age children ( four of those left behind junior school age children).

It’s really bloody alarming. People are really starting to die. I’ve upped my H’s life insurance!

5, wow :( I'm really sorry.

A close family member in her 50s died very suddenly on my wedding day. They weren’t at the wedding because it was during covid when there were restrictions on numbers, but they literally dropped dead. Brain aneurysm.

My family found out right after the ceremony but so as to not ruin my day, they didn’t tell me. I could tell something wasn’t right though and eventually found out through other family members who weren’t there. I then thought I was the one who had to break the news to everyone else.

It was all really heartbreaking for everyone.

My uncle dropped his partner off at the train station so he could travel into London to meet a friend for dinner and was going to pick him up from the same train station a few hours later. His partner arrives back and my Uncle isn't there and didn't answer his phone. His partner then ran the 15 minutes back to their flat to find my uncle sitting on the sofa dead. I still don't quite know what happened but it was to do with his pulmonary artery. 😞

A guy I had a first date with also died very suddenly in his sleep. He was early 30s, and I only found out via mutual friends posting on Facebook.

His ex girlfriend who I knew socially posted a lot about how much she misses him and I always felt awkward when I saw her at parties, etc knowing that we were talking and due to go on a date.

I think I read somewhere that if you can get through your 50s without serious illness then you stand a good chance of reaching an old age. I'm late 50s and although I'm lucky to have escaped any serious diseases, I have awful osteoarthritis in my knees and don't relish another 20-30 years of chronic pain.

My friend is 57 and on his third lot of cancer. This time it's terminal so he'll be lucky to reach his 60s.

My dad dropped dead at fifty three, heart attack, no warning (that he told is about in any case)

I was close with two girls who lived in my road growing up.
One girl's parents divorced, she moved to Manchester with her mum who.got a job as a prison officer. Her mum then started a relationship with one of the inmates, was sacked and got in to drugs. She subsequently got my friend in to drugs and she died of anheroin overdose at the age of twenty two.

My other friend got Lung cancer which spread to her brain and died a few days after her thirtieth birthday in 2014, leaving behind three lovely children...

A lovely man I know of died last year in his sleep aged forty four.

A friend's cousin died from an accidental paracetamol overdose just before Christmas, he was also forty four.

A young boy in our town has been given a terminal diagnosis of an aggressive cancer. He is six for God's sake...

Life is very precious and equally precarious.

I have debilitating health anxiety precisley because I am aware of this.

Yes. I spoke to my mum for an hour in the phone about 10.30am one morning she said she wanted her inhalers reviewing by the doctor.

By 3pm she has collapsed and died and was driving over to her house. She was 66.

Yes. Someone I knew reasonably well died of necrotising fasciitis in her 40s. Another woman who I'd been friends with for a while died of Covid right at the start of the pandemic, she was mid-50s.

It's quite shocking when it happens out of the blue.

Personally after watching so many NDA (near death) experiences on YouTube I’m not afraid of death. It’s living that we should be afraid of never knowing what trauma we’re going to be put through next.
Not to be morbid but honestly there is nothing to be afraid of.

It's not death I fear. It's the heartbreak of missing those that are gone.
Of seeing something in a shop and you go to buy it, only to remember you can no longer give them it. It's the wishing you could introduce them to people who are now in your life.
Of hearing or seeing a joke and remembering it to share with them, then remembering you cannot.

Yes, remembering the good times, the fun, the daft and the chaotic times all helps. But the loss is always there

Hit send too soon.
And I fear loosing more and more people. Yes it natural, the normal order of life. But fear is also normal. And to fear going through the grief multiple times is normal I think.

My father died in his mid 30s. He had an asthma attack and died in the car on the way to hospital. Our family was forever broken and it is terrifying how so much damage can be caused in such a short space of time. I often think that our decision to put him in a car not wait for an ambulance may have lost us precious moments that ultimately were fatal.

My best friend as a teen also died very abruptly of an aneurism. She just had a headache and went to lay down and that was that. She was dead. So horrible for her family.

My mum.died suddenly and unexpectedly at 78. There was nothing wrong with her. Nothing found on the PM. I can't get my head around it