Brit girl, 18, dies from rare heart condition after first kiss with boyfriend
By ANIFriday, February 11, 2011
LONDON - A British girl, who shared a first kiss with her boyfriend, is said to have collapsed and died just minutes later from a rare heart condition.
Jemma Benjamin, 18, and fellow university student Daniel Ross, 21, were at his house when they kissed.
“It was not a sexual relationship but we saw each other a couple of times a week,” the Daily Mail quoted Ross as saying.We were going to go to a bar for some food and went back to my house for a credit card which I had forgotten.
“We were talking and ended up kissing in the hallway by the front door. We went into the kitchen and then the living room and Jemma sat down on the sofa,” he said.
Superfit hockey player Benjamin then suddenly slumped onto the sofa.
Ross, who had known Benjamin for three months, said that her eyelids “suddenly began to droop” and her mouth started to froth before she collapsed at his student flat in Treforest, Pontypridd, South Wales.
He tried desperately to save her before paramedics arrived on the scene, but unfortunately there was nothing he could do.
The inquest heard that the teenager died from the rare cardiac condition SADS, Sudden Arrhythmic Death syndrome, which kills 500 people in Britain each year.
“Jemma and Daniel started chatting and ended up kissing each other - it was possible that it was the first time they had kissed,” Det Con Richie Andrews, who interviewed Ross, told the inquest.
Benjamin’s father Dale told the hearing that he thought his daughter and Ross were “just friends”.
“Jemma was very shy and timid,” he added. (ANI)