I don’t think that there is anything unusual about an initial police statement saying that drowning was the cause of death in an ocean emergency landing and then, after a complete autopsy, diagnosing the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia.
Falling out of the sky and into the ocean can be stressful.
Arrhythmias are often harmless. Only a doctor can rule out heart disease. Many arrhythmias have little to no effect on the heart and can occur in people who are healthy.
But arrhythmias are often a trigger for an anxiety condition that directly relates to heart fears: panic attacks. Arrhythmias are common panic attack triggers, and anxiety and stress increase the likelihood of arrhythmias. One of the theories for how people experience their first panic attack is that during times of stress, their heart suffers from arrhythmia and the person – who has never experienced a panic attack before – thinks something is terribly wrong and suffers from extreme anxiety and panic as a result.
The initial newspaper reports on this plane crash said that Loretta Fuddy’s Deputy Keith Yamamoto, the person who held her hand while in the life vests, tried to “calm her down.” [”Fuddy was clinging to the hand of her deputy, Keith Yamamoto, who tried to help her relax, according to the Rev. Patrick Killilea, who consoled Yamamoto after the crash.”—Associated Press]
Anxiety can actively cause arrhythmia. But despite that it’s not clear why. It’s known that a person’s heartbeat may speed up during times of stress as a result of the fight or flight system, but an arrhythmia tends to be much more sudden and doesn’t always come during times of intense anxiety.
Most likely an arrhythmia occurs as a response to sudden and unexpected adrenaline that your body creates when it’s stressed. It may also be due to tense muscles or nerve firings that may react to the way a person feels mentally. Studies have shown that somehow those with anxiety are more prone to extra muscle contractions of the heart, leading to arrhythmia. Unfortunately, there are few studies of the exact mechanism for how this occurs.
It should also be noted that hyperventilation, which occurs during panic attacks, may also lead to arrhythmia.
Yes, Loretta Fuddy may have been murdered in an elaborate conspiratorial plot. But she also may have died naturally from sudden cardiac arrest that was stress induced by a small plane crash into the Pacific Ocean.
From KHON, Channel 2 in Honolulu, March 14, 2014:
“Official autopsy results for late state health director Loretta Fuddy reveal she was a poor swimmer and never swam in ocean waters.
Fuddy was one of nine people on board a Cessna plane, Makani Kai Air, when it lost power and crashed into the water off Kalaupapa, Molokai last December. Fuddy died from acute cardiac arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, due to hyperventilation.
According to the report, witnesses saw Fuddy exit the aircraft with her flotation device and was “markedly afraid” while waiting for rescue personnel to arrive. She was pronounced dead after being brought to shore.
The report says reported ocean conditions included relatively calm five-foot waves that occasionally splashed over the face of the crash victims as they awaited rescue.
Five foot waves are not relatively calm. I saw some footage that looked like 2-3 foot waves to me. Hardly any that would tend to drown a local.If she did drown then you are telling me the guy let her hand go and watched her drift away? Is that a bit unusual?
“But she also may have died naturally from sudden cardiac arrest that was stress induced by a small plane crash into the Pacific Ocean.”
So wait...now she died of cardiac arrest? I could understand that. Your entire post makes sense....except the M.E. didn’t say she died of cardiac arrest.
You apparently understand that you don’t die of Arrhythmia. I guess the M.E. doesn’t? Huh. He’s supposed to be so smart and all.
The police did not announce the original cause of death, drowning, they simply repeated what the M.E. said after the autopsy was completed.
Did Dr. Harle - who was on the island of Maui at the time that the autopsy was done on the island of Molokai - see water in Loretta Fuddy’s lunqs, or not?
One little question. How did that information come from an autopsy? Did they get her bowling average, too?