For a person to die laughing is not impossible. In fact, the medical literature collects cases of patients with heart conditions who have died after suffering a laughing fit, as well as healthy people who have suffered a fatal fall or other accident due to seizures produced by laughing. Thus died, for example, the Italian poet Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), who fell from his chair while laughing, with such bad luck that he broke his neck.
However, most deaths from fits of laughter occur at meals. Indeed, a laugh can uncoordinate the valve that communicates the esophagus – duct that leads to the stomach – with the trachea and cause part of the food bolus to obstruct the respiratory passages.
