Darren Brooks died 'unexpectedly' while driving his work van due to an underlying but potentially deadly heart condition he never knew he had called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HOCM). Onlookers spotted the 41-year-old 'slumped' at the wheel on the M61 and he tragically died instantly at the scene on 15 November 2022. The field engineer 'loved going to the gym' and lived an 'active' lifestyle so his wife Sarah Brooks says there was 'no reason to suspect' anything was wrong.
Sarah had been 'excited' to experience married life with him having got hitched just six months earlier, in March 2022. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy restricts the heart's capacity to pump blood around the body and is known to cause sudden cardiac death in athletes. Many young sports stars have died from the condition, including former Manchester City footballer Marc-Vivien Foé, 28, in 2003, basketball player Hank Gathers, 23, in 1990 and basketball player Reggie Lewis, 27, in 1993.
It led former footballer Fabrice Muamba to suffer a cardiac arrest and collapse during Bolton's FA Cup match vs Tottenham Hotspur in March 2012. Luckily he was resuscitated despite his heart stopping for 78 minutes and he now supports British Heart Foundation campaigns. Sarah, 37, is now taking part in a charity skydive on Friday 2 August in Nottingham with the North West team at Utilita, where Darren worked for three years, to raise money for the British Heart Foundation.
The 37-year-old hopes that fundraising for more researc.