Two die as three brothers have heart attacks on same day

THREE Italian brothers suffered heart attacks on the same day, two of them dying as a result.

The third was already in the hospital at the time, visiting his elderly mother, and was treated by medics, according to reports in the Corriere della Sera.

Guido Garofalo, 45, was the first to succumb while on a family picnic on Sunday on the steep slopes of Sicily’s Mount Etna volcano. His brother Alberto, 53, was overcome with grief on seeing him drop dead and suffered a cardiac arrest shortly afterward and died.

The two victims’ older brother Salvatore, 57, remains in stable condition after being treated for a blocked artery at the Garabaldi hospital in Catania, eastern Sicily.

He has not been informed of his brother’s deaths.

A sister, who lives in Rome, has not been informed of the tragic deaths yet because she suffers from the same congenital heart disease, the paper said.

Dr Thekia Maurhoff, of the Garibaldi hospital in Catania, said: “All three cases are being investigated — it is quite unique and I have never heard of anything similar like this happening, three heart attacks in three brothers all at the same time.

“From checks, it would appear all three brothers suffered from a heart condition and this lead to them all suffering attacks, at the same time and in two cases they proved to be fatal.”