It was a peaceful morning at the home of Shamim Bibi, a 55-year-old mother from Pabbi, Nowshera. As her family gathered for breakfast, tragedy struck when she suffered a fatal cardiac arrest, turning an ordinary morning into a heartbreaking goodbye.
From breakfast to final goodbye: A teacher’s sudden passing leaves family saddened
Fakhar-e-Alam
PESHAWAR , Sep 21 (APP):It was a peaceful morning at the home of Shamim Bibi, a 55-year-old mother from Pabbi, Nowshera. As her family gathered for breakfast, tragedy struck when she suffered a fatal cardiac arrest, turning an ordinary morning into a heartbreaking goodbye.
After offering Fajr prayers on a relatively cool morning at her village near the bank of the River Kabul, Shamim prepared breakfast for her school-going children and sat down to eat with them, as she had done countless times before.
“My wife first prepared breakfast for her school-going children and later sat down to eat with them. Suddenly, she cried out in severe chest pain and became unconscious,” recalled her husband, Aurangzaib Khan, a primary school teacher in Pabbi, his voice breaking as he recounted the incident.
The family immediately called an ambulance and rushed her to the government hospital in Pabbi, but by the time she reached the facility, doctors declared her dead.
“She left all of us alone,” Aurangzaib said, tears rolling down his face.
For the family, however, Shamim’ s death was more than the sudden loss of a mother and wife; it was the disappearance of a person who had devoted herself to her children’ s future and nurtured hopes for their success.
“My wife wanted to see my children become doctors and engineers. She used to sit with them and help them with their studies until late at night,” he said.
Determined to keep her dream alive, Aurangzaib has now hired a tutor for the children.
“I want to fulfill the dream she had for them,” he said.
Shamim Bibi’ s story reflects the frightening unpredictability of cardiovascular disease, which remains a major public health concern in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and around the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, accounting for an estimated 19.8 million deaths in 2022. Heart attacks and strokes were responsible for about 85 percent of these deaths.
The risk of heart attacks is not confined to old age. Cardiologists say younger people can also develop serious cardiovascular problems, with lifestyle-related risk factors increasingly becoming a concern.
Professor Dr Zahid Aslam, a senior cardiologist and former head of the Cardiology Ward at Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar, said cardiac problems were increasingly being observed among younger patients.
“Heart diseases are not merely a matter of growing age,” he said, noting that he had treated patients in their twenties and thirties who had suffered heart attacks.
He said unhealthy eating habits, inadequate physical activity, poor sleep and other lifestyle factors could contribute to cardiovascular risk.
“Unfortunately, our society has little concept of maintaining a balanced diet. We tend to eat whatever tastes good without considering its effects on our health,” Dr Aslam said.
Across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, rich traditional foods such as halwa puri, nihari, paye and biryani remain deeply woven into the social fabric. They are part of family gatherings, weekend breakfasts and celebrations.
Doctors, however, say the issue is not necessarily about abandoning traditional foods altogether, but about moderation and healthier routines.
Dr Aslam said people did not have to give up their favorite foods permanently, but should avoid turning rich, high-fat meals into a daily habit.
A WHO-supported Pakistan STEPS survey found that 96.5 percent of participants consumed fewer than five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, while 41.5 percent had low physical activity. The survey also reported that 26.3 percent of participants in Sindh and Punjab were overweight and 14.9 percent were obese.
The survey found that 40 percent of participants had three to five major risk factors for noncommunicable diseases due to unhealthy food consumption.
Dr Aslam recalled treating young patients whose lifestyles had exposed them to serious cardiovascular risks.
He said three patients aged around 22 had been brought to his private hospital with cardiac problems. In one case, he said, a young restaurant worker developed a clot in an artery that caused significant damage to the heart.
The young man worked late into the night, had inadequate sleep and relied on poor-quality food, according to the doctor.
Dr Aslam also recalled a 35-year-old woman who suffered a heart attack and was found to have an unhealthy diet and insufficient physical activity among the factors contributing to her condition.
The cases, he said, demonstrated why cardiovascular health should not simply be considered an issue of old age.
He said an unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and tobacco use were among the major behavioral risk factors for cardiovascular disease. These factors can contribute to high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose, abnormal blood lipids and overweight or obesity, all of which increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Dr Aslam said KP faced a substantial burden from noncommunicable diseases, while gaps in systematic data collection could make it difficult to determine the full scale of the problem.
He said noncommunicable diseases accounted for a major share of deaths in the country, especially in KP, with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory diseases among the principal contributors.
For families such as Shamim Bibi’ s, however, statistics are ultimately measured in empty chairs around a breakfast table.
Her husband still remembers the ordinary details of that fateful morning food prepared for the children, a family sitting together and plans for another day when suddenly the entire family was plunged into grief.
There was no indication, he said, that the morning would end with a funeral.
Riaz Khan, a heart patient who survived three heart attacks, knows the other side of the story: what can happen when a patient survives long enough to receive specialized cardiac care.
He said high blood pressure eventually led him to cardiology hospitals, including the Peshawar Institute of Cardiology, where he underwent angiography and angioplasty successfully.
His experience underscored another message from cardiologists: recognizing cardiovascular risk and seeking medical attention promptly can be crucial.
Dr Aslam advised that cardiovascular disease should be detected as early as possible so that appropriate counseling and medical treatment can begin. He identified controlling blood pressure, avoiding tobacco, improving diet and maintaining physical activity as important measures for reducing cardiovascular risk.
Back in Pabbi, the consequences of one sudden cardiac event are being felt every day, as Shamim Bibi will not see her children grow up, sit with them during examinations or watch them take the first steps towards the professions she dreamed of for them.
But her husband is determined that her dream should not disappear with her.
“I have hired a tutor so that the children can continue their studies and her dream can be fulfilled,” Aurangzaib Khan said.
For him, the tragedy is deeply personal, while for doctors, it is also a reminder that cardiovascular disease can affect people across age groups and that prevention, awareness and timely medical care matter.
And for a family of a PST teacher that began one morning around a breakfast table, the lesson has come at an unbearable price.
