M'sian nurse, 37, collapses & dies suddenly after coming home from night shift, was preparing to cook breakfast for family

Less than an hour after returning home from her night shift at the hospital, a nurse in Malaysia suddenly collapsed and passed away.

Vanessa Ewot, a 37-year-old mother of two, got home from Sarawak General Hospital at around 7:47am on Aug. 2.

Her husband Cyril told The Borneo Post he knew the time by checking the CCTV footage at home.

As she usually did each morning, Ewot greeted him with a hug and kiss, then went to check in on their two young children, aged eight and 13, in their bedrooms.

She had brought home some chicken wings to cook breakfast for the children. While she went into the kitchen, Cyril drifted back to sleep.

The next time he woke up, it was about 9:10am, and Ewot was lying on the floor.

A commotion

"At first I thought she was sleeping," an emotional Cyril told The Borneo Post. "I wanted to carry her, but when I touched her, her hands were cold and she looked bluish."

He yelled for his children, and the commotion drew the neighbours' attention. He shouted that his wife had fainted, and asked someone to call the ambulance.

While waiting for help to arrive, he performed CPR on Ewot, then rushed to the hospital with his children.

He believes that Ewot was preparing to cook when she suddenly collapsed.

"The chicken wings were still beside the stove," Cyril recalled. "The stove wasn’t switched on yet. It looked like she was about to start cooking."

'She looked completely normal'

According to Cyril, Ewot had stayed at home with her family all day on Aug. 1 to get enough rest before going to work at around 8pm that evening.

"She looked completely normal," he said.

She had also asked Cyril if they could go to church as a family at 11am after work the next day, saying that they had not been for some time.

Ewot reportedly had no history of health problems such as asthma, heart disease, or high blood pressure.

Cyril said he wants to know what happened, but he will have to wait two to three months for the post-mortem results.

Tributes

Many of Ewot's fellow nurses and friends attended her wake to pay their respects.

The story of her sudden death has also circulated on social media.

Public Health Malaysia and the Sarawak State Health Department posted separately on Facebook, offering their condolences to Ewot's family.

Commenters also offered condolences, while some speculated that Ewot might have experienced fatigue from work, and expressed concern for the welfare of doctors and nurses who work long shifts.