TAMPA --- The Valrico man who died after collapsing in foreclosure court Tuesday morning suffered a heart attack, the Hillsborough County medical examiner's office said Wednesday. He was 67.
The office said Frank Collelo had atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, a leading cause of heart attacks and strokes. He was with his wife, Antoinette Collelo, when he fell to the floor in the Hillsborough County Circuit courtroom of Judge Wayne S. Timmerman around 9 a.m. Tuesday, according to Cristal Bermudez, a public information officer with the Hillsborough sheriff's office
Bermudez said deputies administered CPR to Collelo in court until emergency services arrived and took him to Tampa General Hospital. He was pronounced dead there around 9:45 a.m.
Medical calls in court are common, said Maj. Jim Livingston, with the sheriff's court operations division. But in the nearly six years Livingston has worked at the court, he couldn't recall a death.
"Obviously, there's a lot of stress here,'' he said. "It's not uncommon to have EMS here a couple of times a week, sometimes a couple of times a day."
Collelo was in a hearing regarding his home's pending bank foreclosure, which began last year. The property was left in his possession following a divorce in 2010.
Contact Rachel Crosby at rcrosby@tampabay.com or 813-226-3400. Follow @rachelacrosby.