What Happened?
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On Friday morning, June 19, 1998, her mom discovered Jennifer not breathing. 911 was called and the EMS and police arrived almost immediately. There was nothing they could do. Jennifer had passed away peacefully in her sleep.
An autopsy was performed, but could find no cause of death. There was no heart disease, no stroke, no trace of even an over- the -counter drug. A year and one half ago, Jennifer had a very rare strep infection on her lungs and required emergency surgery. She had gone into septic shock after the operation and would have been lost except for the valient efforts of Yale New Haven Children's Intensive Care staff. All tests and subsequent exams showed that she had fully recovered from the operation. The doctors tell us this in no way contributed to her death. The one possible explanation they can offer is something called Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome, which is a problem with the Q-T ryhthms of the heart which cannot be tested for afterwards. It primarily affects people from adolensence to young 20's. Some people have fainting spells beforehand (Jennifer did not), but sometimes the first symptom is death, which can occur during exhertion (like when an athlete drops dead during a game) or it can occur in sleep. It can run in families or be a spontaneous mutation, and can be detected through an EKG. We have no family history of sudden death, and her sister has gone for testing of her heart and shows no prolonged Q-T or other problems.
We wonder if perhaps Jennifer was supposed to go during her illness two years ago, but God agreed to give her just a little more time with us. We all appreciated each other more afterwards and were grateful for the opportunity to show how much we loved each other. Jennifer was so sweet and good and had a deep faith. Maybe she had done all she needed to get into the best part of Heaven and didn't have to stay here any longer.
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