first heart attack, personal experience :(

My grandfather died in much the same way, three days after I was born, many years ago. My Dad was awake when he had the heart attack that killed him, and it wasn't his first, but it was just so massive that death was nearly instantaneous. He never knew what he hit him. He was visiting a friend. The friend went out into the garage and his wife heard what she thought was my Dad tripping over a chair. In reality, he hit the floor. EMTs were there within minutes, but he was gone. It's hard to understand. You have my sympathies. I'm sure this will be a difficult holiday.

condolences on the loss

So sorry for your loss.

It is a misunderstood fact that people have pain with heart attacks. In fact, most heart attacks are accompanied by no pain at all. This accounts for the many "silent MIs" that occur and only show up and are diagnosed when an EKG is done. If someone goes into ventricular tachycardia during a massive heart attack, they become unconscious within a few short seconds due to oxygen deprivation in the brain. Literally, they do not have time to cognitively rationalize and know what hit them. If your father was in a deep sleep, he most likely had no awareness of what was happening. To my way of thinking, that's a blessing.

Remember, too, that one of the signs of heart attack is denial. There is no way of knowing if your father was having symptoms, subtle though they may have been, that he was just shrugging off as aches or pains of aging, or just denying as being mild, nothing to get concerned about and not revealing to anyone.

It is true that someone can have a fatal heart attack in their sleep with no sign of struggle and no known history. My 50 year old sister passed away in this way last December. It is such a shock for the loved ones. I am sorry for your loss.

So sorry for all the losses posted here . . . many times there isn't warning. Hugs.