Natanya Brook, a 23-year-old passionate video game player, and talented singer died unexpectedly while playing Xbox with friends late at night, an inquest has heard.
Natanya - also known as Tanya, a resident of Aylesford in Kent, England, was part of a semi-pro gaming team and loved singing. She had auditioned for the British version of "The X-Factor" and "The Voice," reports said.
On Aug. 1, 2021, Tanya reportedly stayed up until late night playing on her Xbox with friends in a virtual reality room. Tanya had been drinking vodka and Coke until 2 a.m. before she suddenly stopped talking and fell silent, the inquest was told.
In the morning, Jenny Brook, Tanya’s mother, checked her daughter’s room and thought she was asleep when she found her laying up against the bed.
But the mother knew something was wrong after she returned home several hours later and realized that her daughter hadn't moved since the time she left.
Jenny tried performing CPR and frantically phoned the emergency services, however, Tanya was pronounced dead by paramedics, The Mirror reports.
Jenny told the court that her daughter’s gaming friends remembered hearing her say "ooh, I feel..." before going completely silent during the game.
"It’s like a light switch went out. That brings me a little bit of peace as I know she wasn’t in any sort of pain as they would have heard it," Jenny said.
"I still have a gaping hole in me and miss her as she was such an amazing bright light in my life."
"Tanya was my best friend. I told her everything and she told me everything. Even some of the things I didn’t want to know."
"She had the best sense of humor, and nobody I know had a bad memory of her."
Coroner Bina Patel heard Tanya had a history of absence seizures, including childhood absence epilepsy, a condition that begins usually between ages 3 and 8, which results in brief episodes of impaired consciousness causing the affected children to stare into nothingness for a few seconds or even stop talking mid-sentence.
An autopsy report from Dr. Deirdre McKenna revealed there were no abnormalities in any of Tania’s major organs.
Although the doctor was unable to confirm an exact cause of death, she found that on the balance of probabilities the medical cause of death was sudden death in epilepsy.
"Natanya Brook was found in her bedroom at her home address on Aug. 1 where she died of unknown but natural causes, likely because of problems connected to epilepsy," the doctor concluded.
Speaking about her daughter's untimely death, Jenny said Tanya "changed people's lives".
"We always told Tanya her epilepsy was a diagnosis and not an excuse to not do anything and that's how she lived her life. She changed people's lives whether it be encouraging people to sing or making them smile," she said.
"She just had this ability to pull people towards her. I don't think there is any more she could have done in her 23 years."
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