Dawn Turner says grief after her veteran son’s suicide led to takotsubo syndrome, a temporary heart condition that can resemble a heart attack.
A British mother who feared she was having a heart attack was hospitalized with takotsubo syndrome, commonly known as “broken heart syndrome,” after months of grief following her veteran son’s suicide, according to an account reported by SWNS and published by Fox News Digital.
Dawn Turner, 57, of Eckington in Worcester, said she woke with severe chest pain, sweating, heart palpitations, shortness of breath and pain spreading to her arm and jaw. Her partner called emergency services, and she was taken to a hospital, where blood tests did not show the enzymes doctors would expect from a heart attack, she said.
After further testing and a cardiology review, Turner said she was diagnosed with takotsubo syndrome, a temporary and usually reversible heart condition often associated with intense emotional or physical stress. The condition can closely resemble a heart attack, with sudden chest pain and shortness of breath among the most common symptoms, and it most often affects women over 50, experts cited in the report said.
Turner’s son, Rob Homans, took his own life in August 2025 after struggling with mental health issues following military service, she said. Homans served for 10 years in the U.K.’s Royal Horse Artillery after joining in 2006, including two tours in Afghanistan, and returned to civilian life in 2016. Turner said his health later worsened and that he was eventually told he had PTSD, though she also raised the possibility that some symptoms overlapped with mild traumatic brain injury.
Turner, who is chief executive of the veterans charity Stepway, said the grief after her son’s death felt different from earlier bereavement because she could not find closure. “Until that moment, I had never really understood that a person could become so overwhelmed by stress and grief that it physically affects the heart,” she said. “Broken heart syndrome can look and feel like a heart attack.”
Takotsubo syndrome temporarily weakens the heart’s main pumping chamber and can change its shape, disrupting normal pumping function. The condition has been linked in research to the brain’s response to stress, including a 2019 European Heart Journal article cited in the report that examined communication between the brain and heart.
Turner said her cardiologist told her that her heart was healthy and had not been damaged, but that recovery could take two weeks to a month. She said she was advised to rest, seek counseling and make lifestyle changes to reduce stress.
She is now recovering and pacing herself, SWNS reported. The case underscores why sudden chest pain, breathlessness, sweating or pain radiating to the arm or jaw should be treated as urgent symptoms, even when stress or grief may be part of the explanation.
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