Forensic expert of Sassoon Hospital was about to perform a postmortem moments before he collapsed

Dr M S Vabale (49), the head of the forensic science department at Sassoon Hospital and B J Medical College, died of a severe cardiac arrest yesterday. Vabale was on his way to the morgue when the incident occured.

"Our doctors rushed him to the ICU and then, the cardiac catheterisation lab. However, we couldn't save him," said Dr Arun Jamkar, dean of Sassoon hospital.

According to doctors at Sassoon Hospital, stress might be the reason why he suffered the heart attack. "With 9,000 postmortems a year, Sassoon Hospital is the busiest sanatorium in the state. Hence, being a head of the department, there was a lot of pressure on him," said a senior doctor, on condition of anonymity. He added that though there were two other senior doctors, Dr Vabale had to attend all the cases, as most of them were medico-legal matters.

However, Dr Jamkar said that Dr Vabale's smoking habits and obesity could be the reason why he developed blockages in the heart, which lead to the attack.