SADS Sudden Adult Death Syndrome: Moment young mum’s husband dropped dead in

It was just another Monday. Bec Barry had cooked up a stir-fry and husband Andrew played with their kids. The couple did a workout, showered and chatted before bed.

Then Bec’s world shattered.

As she talked to the loving, fit and healthy dad of two, he suddenly went silent. She looked over at him and he was standing motionless, staring blankly back at her.

Then he crumpled dead to the ground. He was 35.

‘I have to live with that for the rest of my life,’ Bec told Daily Mail Australia. ‘I literally watched him take his last breath. It was so fast… it was a matter of seconds.’

Andrew, a builder, was a victim of a condition related to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) which can strike down the relatively young without warning.

As Bec Barry (right) talked to loving, fit and healthy dad-of-two Andrew (left), he suddenly went silent, stood motionless, staring blankly back at her – and then fell dead to the ground

Just a few months earlier, Andrew had undergone a full physical after his brother had a health scare – and had passed with flying colours.

‘He had a Holter monitor [a wearable portable electrocardiogram], he had an ECG, he had an echocardiogram, he had everything done but an MRI,’ revealed Bec.

‘Andrew played footy, rode bikes, did all the stuff normal guys do. He had no prior symptoms.

‘And because he passed all his other testing, they said he didn’t need the MRI.’

A post mortem later revealed an MRI could have at least identified he had AVC – Arrhythmogenic Ventricular Cardiomyopathy, which causes fatty tissue to replace heart muscle.

The genetic condition causes heart ventricle walls to become thin, and disrupts vital electrical signals to the heart muscle.

It’s been linked as a potential cause for some cases of SADS which strikes down adults in their 20s and 30s without warning.

Bec Barry revealed Andrew had undergone a full, thorough, physical just a few months earlier, after his brother had a health scare, but Andrew passed with flying colours

‘They put it down to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, but it’s because he had this undiagnosed heart condition,’ added Bec.

The only previous clue to the coming tragedy was when Andrew fainted a month earlier, and when he fell lifeless to the ground, Bec thought he had passed out again.

‘We were getting ready for bed,’ she said. ‘And basically, in that moment, that’s when my life changed forever. He was looking at me and he just collapsed. 

‘He was talking to me one minute. He literally finished one sentence and asked me a  question and I turned around to answer. 

‘I answered it and he didn’t reply. I turned around, and he was still standing at that point. But then he started to collapse. 

‘He just fell in a heap on the floor. I thought at first he fainted because he’d fainted previously. 

‘But when the colour drained from his face and he stopped breathing, I knew something was very wrong. I was just shaking. I had no idea what was going on.’

The couple met 16 years ago while Bec Barry (left), now 39, was working in a bank and Andrew (right) came in for a credit card as he was heading overseas

She called a neighbour who carried out CPR while they waited for an ambulance to arrive. Bec made sure their kids Taj, 12 and Zali, 9, didn’t see the tragic scene.

MEDICS BAFFLED BY 21 YEAR OLD’S MYSTERY HEART ATTACK 

Jess Allen cheated death after a heart attack at 21 put her in a coma for five days

Jess Allen cheated death when a heart attack at the age of 21 put her in a coma for five days – but she woke up in hospital thinking she’d just twisted her ankle.

The superfit rugby player from Rockhampton, Queensland, had been running water bottles for the men’s team when she suddenly collapsed on the field without warning. 

Only CPR by quick-thinking bystanders saved the mum-of-one’s life.

‘It was a sound I will never forget, like a snoring sound, and I looked over and she is lying down on the ground,’ said Frenchville Pioneers coach Stephen Anderson.

‘When she was just lying there not moving my first recollection was, “Geez, her heart has stopped.”‘

 Medics are still trying to find the cause of the heart attack, but she now has an implanted defibrillator and on heart medication.

She doesn’t remember anything about the day of the heart attack. 

‘I thought I just did my ankle in and that I was coming out of ankle surgery; I had no idea it was my heart,’ she told the ABC.

‘I don’t have enough words to thank those who were involved in helping me.’

She now hopes to return to her normal life with a return to the playing fields.

Jess added: ‘The doctors don’t think it will happen again.’

‘I went to close all the doors down the other end of the house so that they couldn’t hear – they’re normally terrible sleepers but thankfully they slept through the whole thing,’ Bec said.

‘I didn’t want them to see him lying lifeless on the floor of our bedroom. I didn’t want them to have that last image of him.’

Paramedics worked for more than 90 minutes to try and…