Heart Attack

Jim Maloney, the longtime assistant to Temple University basketball coach John Chaney, died last night after apparently suffering a heart attack while driving on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Maloney, 62, was stricken while driving east across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge around 6:30 p.m. and crashed into another car, according to Delaware River Port Authority spokesman Joseph Diemer. Jeanne Chaney, wife of the Temple head coach, said early this morning that her husband was at the Maloneys' Haddonfield home with the Maloney family and had rushed there as soon as he heard the news.

Matthew C. Ploppert, a Maple Shade man who faces the death penalty for burning to death a partially blind man, tried to mislead police into believing that the victim had died of a heart attack and that he had set the fire in a moment of panic. In a tape-recorded statement Ploppert made to police that was played before a Burlington County Superior Court judge yesterday, Ploppert admitted pouring lighter fluid on the body of Bruce Barckley and starting a fire in the victim's Burlington City home.

A loving husband and father, who lived to compete in road races, collapsed and died yesterday while running in the Independence Blue Cross Broad Street Run. Richard Lagocki, 45, of Miller Street near Clearfield in Port Richmond, was pronounced dead at Allegheny University Hospitals-Hahnemann. It was the first fatality in the 19-year history of the race. A cardiologist and a nurse, who were also participating in the race, worked quickly to try to revive Lagocki after he fell but were unsuccessful.

One frightening thought shot through Mayor Goode's mind when he was jarred from sleep in the wee hours of Oct. 20, his heart beating rapidly: "I thought I was having a heart attack," he said in an interview yesterday. "That's why I did not waste any time at all in walking out of my house, getting into the police vehicle and going directly to the closest hospital and telling them that I felt very ill and felt they needed to check and see whether . . . I was having a heart attack.

Seven years ago this February, Tish Colombi, the mayor of Haddonfield, woke up feeling sick to her stomach. She felt like she had heartburn all day but decided it was something that would go away. She and her husband, Dan, went to church. They even went to a hospital, not to check out her symptoms but to visit Jack Tarditi, a former mayor and a Haddonfield commissioner who had had knee surgery. Colombi woke up sick in the middle of that night, but again she thought it was something she had eaten or a touch of the flu. The next morning, she and Dan, a retired doctor, decided that she should go to the hospital.

Georgia Tech football coach Chan Gailey suffered a heart attack yesterday while playing racquetball at the campus recreation center. Gailey, who turned 53 in January, was taken to Piedmont Hospital after experiencing chest pains. He underwent a balloon angioplasty, a procedure that is used to clear a blocked artery, and was resting comfortably, spokeswoman Allison George said. "He's expected to be in the hospital 3 or 4 days," she said. "He will make a complete recovery. " George was not aware of Gailey having any previous heart problems.

Longtime restaurateur, club owner and mob associate Salvatore "Sam the Barber" LaRussa died Sunday of a heart attack in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County. He was 58. Clean-shaven, short, "built like a fireplug," LaRussa wore his receding black hair longish in the back. He had an eye for the trendy nightclub scene, opening clubs at 13th and Locust streets in the 1960s, on South Street in the '70s and along the Delaware River waterfront in the '90s - including Club Vegas, South Beach Club and the Aztec Club, which he built, operated and later sold.

An employee of a Camden furniture store died from heart failure Monday, minutes after a woman bit him on the finger while the two were engaged in a heated argument over a late furniture payment, Camden police said yesterday. Bernard Rossin, 57, of the 7700 block of Dorcas Street in Northeast Philadelphia, started having difficulty breathing after the incident and was taken by ambulance to West Jersey Hospital-Camden, where he was pronounced dead. No charges were filed against the woman, according to George Kerns, spokesman for Camden County Prosecutor Samuel Asbell.

You may have heard the expression "as serious as a heart attack. " Now there's a videotape on just that topic, due in stores next month, and it's a very solemn production indeed. Your Heart - Your Health (Magic Video Publishing, $29.95) promises "to reduce your risk of heart attack and add years to your life. " That's a difficult claim to prove, but there's no disputing that the health practices summarized in this 59-minute program, from stress reduction to cessation of smoking, add up to a sensible way of life.

Coaching is in Steve Solomone's blood. Unfortunately, the heart that pumps that blood is not up to the task anymore. The winningest men's basketball coach in Gloucester County College history had to step down earlier this season because of a mild heart attack on Nov. 3 after a scrimmage with Reading Community College. Even after the attack, Solomone gave it a try. He coached the first half of Gloucester's season-opening 90-56 win over Delaware County Community College on Nov. 12. "I told [assistant coach Rick Jackson]