Diego Maradona died in his sleep after suffering heart failure which caused a pulmonary edema, a preliminary autopsy has discovered.
The soccer legend suffered a sudden death in his bed at the rented home near Buenos Aires he moved to after leaving hospital on November 11 following a brain blood clot op, the post-mortem showed.
Medics are also said to have detected dilated cardiomyopathy, a medical condition in which the heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged and cannot pump enough blood to the rest of the body.
Pulmonary edema, fluid accumulation in the lung’s tissue and air spaces, are caused by heart problems in most cases.
Maradona's body arrived at the presidential palace in Argentina on Thursday as a country pays its last respects to the football icon.
Grieving fans also gathered outside the Buenos Aires stadium where Maradona began his career and which has since been renamed in his honour.
It also emerged overnight that the last person to see Diego alive was his nephew Johnny Esposito.
Initial reports following the former Naples and Barcelona star’s death said he had gone back to bed following breakfast on Wednesday morning after telling his nephew he didn’t feel well.
But an official report by state prosecutors carrying out a routine investigation into Diego’s death, states 24-year-old Johnny was the last person to see him but at 11pm on Tuesday.
Maradona’s psychologist Carlos Diaz and a psychiatrist named as Agustina Cosachov arrived at the home in the exclusive gated estate of San Andres north of Buenos Aires where the soccer legend had been resting since being discharged from hospital around 11.30am yesterday/on Wednesday.
“They went to his bedroom on a ground floor and spoke to him and he didn’t reply and they asked his nephew and an assistant to enter the room,” according to the report leaked to Argentinian media.
The reports added: “They tried to wake him up and after failing to detect any vital signs made an unsuccessful attempt to revive him by practising CPR.”
The first emergency medical responders on the scene continued the attempts to revive Maradona along with a surgeon who lives near the property, using adrenaline and atropine which is a prescription medicine used to treat the symptoms of low heart rate.
The retired footballer, who turned 60 on October 30 and was hospitalised three days later before a routine scan detected a brain bleed that required an emergency op, was pronounced dead at midday.
