67-Year-Old Catches Laprus In Pokémon Go, Suffers Fatal Heart Attack Seconds Later

Lapras is one of the rarest Pokémon in Pokémon Go. But, the fact that the excitement of catching one could actually cause someone a heart attack is something you may not have considered.

Singapore resident Liang Weiming, a Level 28 Pokémon trainer having a Pokédex containing 200 Pokémon, suffered a fatal heart attack and died seconds after he caught a Lapras in the game on Feb. 26, possibly because of the excitement caused by getting his hands on the rare Pokémon.

Weiming was hunting the beast at the Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore and had just returned from a birthday party when the incident occurred.

Weiming’s wife revealed that he had been suffering from cardiac based illness and she suspects that the excitement of catching the rare Pokémon triggered the fatal heart.

While Pokémon Go has led many players to walk long distances to catch elusive Pokémon, making them healthier, it has also caused fatal accidents where players where hit by cars while playing the game. One such incident took place in August 2016, when a woman was hit by a car in Japan while riding a bicycle and simultaneously hunting Pokémon. A week earlier, a man had run over two pedestrians while driving and playing the game.

The immensely popular game has been on the top of the charts for long. The game’s parent company, Niantic’s CEO revealed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Wednesday that Pokémon trainer had traversed 8.7 billion kilometers while playing the game, which had crossed 650 million downloads as of last Tuesday.