It’s been amply established that coronavirus is not just the damn flu. We know that if this thing breaks bad, it does absolutely horrific things to the lungs. And that may not even be the half of it. As According to Fish noted yesterday, there are reports of some pretty frightening complications associated with this virus that have been seriously underreported—strokes, blood clots, kidney and heart damage, etc.

Well, we may have to add another to the list—heart attacks. According to an autopsy of the first person in this country who is known to have died from coronavirus, it looks like this virus literally caused her heart to burst.

On February 6, Patricia Dowd of San Jose died of a heart attack at home while suffering from what initially looked like a really bad case of the flu. But on Thursday, Santa Clara County health officials revealed that bad flu was actually COVID-19. That was by itself enough to unnerve a lot of people in the Bay Area. Dowd’s death, and those of two others in and around San Jose, suggested that the virus was already spreading on the West Coast three weeks sooner than initially thought. Remember, it was long thought that the first case coronavirus-related death was in Washington on February 28. Her funeral drew some 700 people some weeks before local officials banned such gatherings. Officials now say that had they known the virus was spreading that soon, they would have moved a lot faster to contain it.

But if this could possibly get more horrifying, it did on Saturday night, when the San Francisco Chronicle got its hands on Dowd’s autopsy. The article is paywalled, but fortunately, the report isn’t (h/t Politico). There were traces of coronavirus RNA in Dowd’s heart, trachea, lungs and intestines. Although Dowd was mildly obese and had a slightly enlarged heart, there was no evidence of heart disease or clotting. Rather, it appears that so much blood collected in the sac around Dowd’s heart that her heart ruptured.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Dowd’s husband asked for the autopsy because there was literally nothing in his wife’s history that would have caused a heart attack. Dowd exercised frequently and was in overall good health. Pathologist Judy Melinek told the paper that it appeared Dowd’s heart burst as a result of her immune system attacking the virus so hard.

Reports like this are yet more reason why we should be falling all over ourselves to avoid getting this virus. If it can potentially do this to your heart, it’s even scarier than we thought. And that’s saying something.

As a side note, put a bug in the Chronicle’s ear. There is no defensible reason why coronavirus articles should be paywalled. I tweeted this at them—feel free to retweet.