voted up for great justice.
i bet 8/10 reported unknown sudden death reasons are related to desync/lag and especially this bug.

please also take note of this very related gamebreaking glitch:
http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/173800-cheat-or-glitch-using-or-wtf-ever/

extract from the thread is a video from some douchebag to make it clear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKmqWkp3ogs