I guess it's scary, but people do drop dead. I was working at a startup once, and in my monitor reflection, I see the guy behind me drop to the floor. He started convulsing, and then was still. We called the paramedics, but the next morning we learned he had died. That was it. No warning. An otherwise healthy guy. You never know when it's going to be your day.
Don't know, I think it could mean a lot of things. You usually read about it when healthy young persons drops dead on a football field in the middle of practice. Saw some numbers about it recently, happens a lot.
This happens all the time. It happened to my dad, who was healthy and exercised regularly. After a bike ride he collapsed and died.
Often there are warnings, like arythmias which I guess can be signs the electrical functions aren't great. Those sorts of congenital defects are hard to detect, acknowledge and treat seriously as a condition.
ROC – Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium datum were gathered between June 1, 2014 and May 31, 2015 and includes EMS-assessed and EMS-treated out-of-hospital cardiac arrest from multiple regions of the US.
According to the ROC:
Approximately 356,461 people in the US experienced an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (347,922 adults, 7,037 children under age 18)
22,520 of those 356,461 were witnessed by bystanders
12.4% survived to hospital discharge
Of the EMS patients who experienced non-traumatic cardiac arrest outside a hospital, and did not have bystander intervention, 10.8% survived until hospital discharge
For example, http://www.sca-aware.org/sca-news/aha-releases-2015-heart-an... says that the incidence is 0.24 per 100k annually for high school athletes in Minnesota. Extrapolating that rate to the whole US population would give ~800 deaths per year. The observed 400k number includes quite a lot of people who suffer cardiac arrest after a history of heart disease.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/apr/09/michael-goolae...