It’s a staple of ghost stories, horror films, spooky TV shows, and creepy books. And I suppose for someone with a heart condition, it may well be true. But can a young, healthy person be literally scared to death, without any physical cause? –Rebecca S., Seattle
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Sudden death due to stress has been reported throughout history. Physician George Engel, in a 1971 review in Annals of Internal Medicine, notes that in the New Testament the apostle Peter tells Ananias, “You have lied not to man but to God,” whereupon Ananias and later his wife Sapphira fall down dead. For more recent instances Engel over a six-year period compiled press accounts of 170 deaths due to “disrupting life events.” Three-fifths involved men, commonly 45 to 55 years old; the peak age for women was 70 to 75. In 27 percent of cases, the largest category, the precipitating event involved fear. Examples: “A 63-year-old security guard died after being bound by robbers. . . . A woman seeing some teenagers outside her apartment beating and robbing a bus driver died while phoning the police. . . . A 35-year-old man accused of robbery told his lawyer, ‘I’m scared to death!’; then collapsed and died.”
Yow. But the lack of detail smells to me of urban legend, and others have reached the same conclusion. The typical victim per Engel is a middle-aged male who undergoes a mildly traumatic event and dies within an hour. Not to be callous, but so what? Sudden cardiac death (fatal heart attack, essentially) is common–roughly 450,000 cases per year in the U.S. excluding deaths in hospitals. Eighty-five to ninety percent of the time the victim has heart disease. Sure, in cases linked to an emotional jolt, maybe stress was a factor; still, the guy usually had problems to start with and at most was pushed over the edge.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
