(CNN) About 15 years ago, an Amish family in the eastern US was hit by an unexplainable tragedy -- one of their children died suddenly while playing and running around. Just a few months later, the same fate befell another one of their children. The family had what they referred to as "the curse of sudden death." After the deaths of the first two children, a medical examiner who conducted the autopsies got in touch with researchers at the Mayo Clinic Windland Smith Rice Sudden Death Genomics Laboratory in 2004. As the years went by, pediatric cardiologists and genetic counselors from other parts of the country reached out to the lab about other Amish families whose children had also died sudden deaths -- all looking for answers about this heartbreaking phenomenon.

Source: CNN January 16, 2020 13:00 UTC