Mum-of-four, 33, dies without warning while daughters unwrap their Christmas presents
A MUM-of-four tragically died on Christmas Day while her children were happily opening presents in another room.
Ashley Stanik told her ex-boyfriend and father of her kids, Kane, that she wasn't feeling well and needed to lie down.
The 33-year-old asked the dad to film their girls opening their gifts while she tried to "sleep it off" at their home near Brisbane, Australia.
Just a few hours later, Kane discovered Ashley dead.
Her sister-in-law Cassandra said the family are struggling to come to terms with Ashley's passing.
"There was no indication that there was anything wrong, which makes it even harder to comprehend," she told the Courier Mail.
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The mum had been out shopping for presents on Christmas Eve and had spent the hours before her death wrapping and placing the gifts under the tree.
After waking up early on December 25, Ashley said she wasn't feeling well.
Cassandra said: "She had been up for a couple of hours in the morning but went back to bed to see if she could sleep it off.
"My brother, Kane went in to wake her around 2.30pm, but it was too late. She had already left us."
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Ashley's daughters, aged four, eight, 12 and 18, are devastated by their mother's death and are now with their father.
Since Ashley's sudden death, Kane has spent most of his time at home looking after his daughters, according to Cassandra.
But the dad is concerned he won't be able to cover the funeral costs, as he is receiving a disability pension.
In an attempt to help her brother, Cassandra has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to pay for the funeral.
It has so far raised $5,042AUD (£2,698).
"[We are] wanting to raise money for funeral and help her 4 children, sadly she left us on Christmas Day," he wrote.
"They [children] are left to say goodbye with no one knowing how to pay [for the] funeral and how much help these children are going to need to some what get back to normal."
The exact cause of Ashley's death has not been shared, but she was not known to have any underlying health problems, it is understood.
The sudden death of a previously healthy young individual is a rare but tragic event.
Every year about one in 100,000 people aged between one and 35 dies suddenly of a natural cause.
The vast majority of sudden death cases in the young are caused by diseases of the heart, according to the Mayo Clinic.
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In people above the age of 35, the most common trigger for a sudden cardiac death is a heart attack caused by a blood clot that obstructs the blood and oxygen flowing to a part of the heart.
Heart attacks in younger people are usually due to inherited abnormalities that lead to high cholesterol levels.
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