If you’ve ever experienced the sudden loss of a loved one, you’ll know all too well how quickly life can be turned upside down.
Lisa Lee, a mother from Northumberland, UK, endured sorrow quite unlike any other when her partner, Lewis Little, died one night in his sleep. Making matters all the more tragic, Lisa revealed that she had initially tried to kick boyfriend Lewis out of bed for snoring too loudly.
Yet when she turned on the light, Lisa was met with a haunting sight that many of us probably couldn’t conjure in our worst nightmares: Lewis had passed away, and the sound Lisa had heard was the last of the air leaving his body.
Though this story took place back in 2017, it’s equally as saddening and shocking today.
As per the Daily Mirror, Lisa and Lewis, parents of one, had discovered just one year before his passing that Lewis was living with a rare heart condition known as Brugada syndrome.
Lewis was a determined to be a low-risk sufferer of the condition, which the Mayo Clinic characterize as posing an increased risk of irregular heart rhythms beginning in the lower chambers of the heart.
Lewis was only 25 when his suddenly stopped breathing one night. His heartbroken partner told how she believed that her boyfriend was snoring.
“We were told that Lewis would have a long, happy and healthy life – but he died one year after diagnosis,” Lisa said.
When we were in bed I just thought he was snoring, so I kicked him out of the bed and told him to shut up.
“But I felt that the sheets were wet and knew something was wrong. I turned the lights on and his face was purple – he wasn’t breathing.
“I called an ambulance and it felt like it took forever. They pronounced him dead at the hospital. I later found out that the snoring sound was the air leaving his body.”
Lisa also stated her belief that her boyfriend’s life might have been saved if he had been fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), a device which restarts the heart. Sadly, Lewis wasn’t deemed high risk enough to qualify.
“Lewis should have had the option to have an ICD fitted, but he wasn’t “high risk” enough. Things like this can’t be categorised,” Lisa explained.
“Lewis was my soul mate. He would always say to me that he would propose – he had already picked out our wedding song.
“It has just put everything into perspective, life is so short and I feel like I was very naive to think that nothing like this would ever happen.”
As per the Mirror, Brugada syndrome is a leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young, healthy people and can go undiagnosed as there are no visible abnormalities.
Rest in peace, Lewis Little.