Karnataka Shocker: Class 9 Student Dies of Sudden Heart Attack in Davanagere

Bengaluru, February 24: A 14-year-old student from Karnataka's Davanagere died of a suspected heart attack in the early hours of Monday, February 23, marking another tragic instance of sudden cardiac death among the youth. The boy, identified as Muzammil, a Class 9 student from Goguddu village in Jagalur taluk, reportedly collapsed inside his home around 3:00 AM after waking up. Despite his parents’ immediate efforts to rush him to a nearby medical facility, he was declared dead on arrival, leaving the local community and his school in deep mourning.

Muzammil was a student at the Rajiv Gandhi Residential High School in Hanumanthapura and was the second of three children born to Chaman Saab and Fatima. School officials and residents described him as a bright and active student, noting that he had shown no obvious signs of ill health prior to the incident. The sudden nature of his passing has sent shockwaves through the district, prompting local leaders and the Gyan Jyothi Vidya Sanstha to express their condolences while calling for greater awareness regarding adolescent heart health.

Class 9 Student Collapses and Dies of Heart Attack in Karnataka

According to family members, the teenager woke up in the middle of the night to use the washroom but collapsed suddenly upon returning to his room. His parents, alerted by the sound, found him unresponsive and immediately arranged for transport to the hospital.

Medical professionals who examined him post-mortem indicated that a massive cardiac arrest was the likely cause of death. The Jagalur police have been informed of the incident, and while it is being treated as a natural death due to medical reasons, the tragedy has reignited a statewide debate over the vulnerability of teenagers to cardiovascular events.

The death of a 14-year-old is not an isolated incident in the region. Karnataka has witnessed a series of sudden cardiac deaths among individuals under the age of 25 over the last year, leading the state government to classify sudden deaths outside hospitals as a "notifiable disease."

Health experts are increasingly concerned that factors such as sedentary lifestyles, undetected congenital heart conditions, and post-viral complications may be contributing to this trend. In response to similar cases, the state's health department recently expanded the Puneeth Rajkumar Hrudaya Jyoti scheme to provide emergency cardiac care and AED installations in public spaces, though the effectiveness of these measures for domestic emergencies remains a challenge.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 24, 2026 12:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).