If Fuddy didn’t die as determined, we can only hope evidence emerges to that effect. Otoh, it’s a mistake to imagine that Hollywood’s version of panic is the only one there is. I.e.: ppl hysterically screaming they don’t want to die. A quiet panic can be just as hard on the heart, and is probably far more common.
Take Flt 1549 which ditched in the Hudson. Based on the number of passengers screaming hysterically [0] everyone on it was “calm” as the plane neared the water. Except that interviews reveal otherwise. Most thought they were about to die. They truly believed they were living out their last few seconds of life on this planet.
Now I don’t care who you are, that level of stress puts a strain on the heart. How can we know Fuddy didn’t assume the worst? We don’t know what thoughts were going through her mind, or how tense she may have gotten seconds before the plane connected w the ocean.
From what I have read, death from this type of arrhythmia usually occurs w’in a half an hr of the “acute triggering event”, and almost always w’in one hr. The fact that she regained her calm after a safe landing wd not impact that scenario. The damage wd have been done in the moments leading up to the crash, and the only thing that wd have helped her subsequently wd be immediate medical care.
Does anyone, apart from God, know exactly how & why she died? Only if, as some have speculated, it was outright murder. Barring that it’s just not definite. I believe she cd have died of untreated arrhythmia. I.e.: it’s possible. It is not knowable, however, as a fact. But I wd not want to be an obese, sedentary 65 yo facing a forced water landing. If the attendant stress put my heart into fatal arrhythmia, it wd not be a statistical improbability.
Note: when I referred to ‘interviews’ from the passengers on flt 1549. I should have said, ‘post-crash interviews’. Perhaps the context makes that obvious. Many passengers were interviewed following the event, and most said they assumed death was imminent. (& this despite appearing ‘calm’ as the plane neared the water. Iow, ‘calm’ cannot be determined by lack of hysterical screaming. It wd best be determined by monitoring heartbeat and other stress indicators.)