Lifelong Sweethearts Die Of Heart Attacks Within 15 Minutes Of Each Other
Sun Sentinal
It's a love story with a final chapter that practically floats off the pages of a Nicholas Sparks novel.After 45 years of married life, Tom Shirley and his wife Naomi both passed away of heart attacks within 15 minutes of each other on March 15th.
They died separately at the same Florida hospital.
Mr. Shirley, 83, was taken to the Cleveland Clinic with heart problems Saturday afternoon, reports the Sun Sentinal. Mrs. Shirley, 75, "succumbed to a heart attack herself after being summoned from their Southwest Ranches home for what doctors said may be a last visit with her husband."
Their son Troy said Mrs. Shirley died on her way to the hospital to visit her husband.
"Dad didn't know that she had passed, and she didn't know that he had passed," Troy Shirley said. "I don't understand it, but it's beautiful."
This isn't the first story of its kind.
In February, New Jersey residents 95-year-old Olympia DeNittis and 94-year-old Michael DeNittis died just hours apart after a 60-year marriage.
In August, an Ohio couple married for nearly 66 years died just 11 hours apart a nursing-home room they shared in their final days.