Emmerdale fans left stunned at the sudden death of Joanie Dingle – before questioning if she will now resume her role in Coronation Street

Another quizzed: "Is Joanie gonna turn up in Coronation Street now?" while one took to the keyboard to squeal: "WHAAT!!?? Oh well, get her to Weatherfield."

Yet back in the Dales, Joanie's death rocked the village.

In tonight's episode, the former factory worker suffered a heart attack and died just hours after being released from prison for assaulting a police officer.

Next to friend Lisa Dingle, Joanie slumped into her van seat as she told Lisa she wished she had never become involved with estranged husband Zak before dying.

Joanie had just discovered Lisa had taken Zak back after he left her following his affair with Joanie.

"I’m sorry, me and Zak were planning on coming to tell you together,” said Lisa as Joanie struggled to cope with the news.

“Why? How can you have him back after everything he’s done,” Joanie railed before realising she had no right to be angry.

“Good luck to you Lisa, you’re a better woman than I am if you can forgive and forget.”

Lisa then broke the news to Joanie about Zak sending her a solicitor’s separation to begin divorce proceedings and she didn’t take it well.

“It solicitor’s letter? Couldn’t he have just waited a day? He really is the most ham-fisted, tactless, self-centred oaf. This is all about him, he believes he has the right to be happy no matter who he lies to.

"I really don’t see what I ever saw in him, I truly don’t. "I’m so sorry I stole him from you.”

But Joanie admitted she wished she had never become involved with Zak after arriving in the village.

She said: "I’m lucky, I’ve got Kyle. I wish I’d just kept it the two of us, we were so happy. Settling into the village, all this new family around us. And then I got the job at the factory and we became friends. I’d do anything to go back to that.”

But as Lisa turned to look at Joanie, she keeled over and slumped against the van’s window, dying.

After calling an ambulance, Joanie was pronounced dead and Lisa had to return to the village to break the news.

Telling Zak, Lisa told him: "Joanie’s died. I collected her from prison like we’d planned, we were talking, it was fine and then she keeled over.

"I called an ambulance, they tried to resuscitate her but she’d gone.”

Later the couple went over to break the devastating news to Kerry and Dan.

"Kerry I’m so sorry, she collapsed on the way home from prison,” Lisa told her.

"The ambulance came quickly, the paramedics couldn’t bring her back. It was her heart. I told her how much you all loved her."

"I wanted to see her, give her her balloon,” she replied before crying into Dan’s chest.

Later, Zak broke down as he began to blame himself for Joanie’s death and expressed regret over his treatment of her.

“You said you and Jonie were talking, did you tell her?” he asked Lisa.

"You were only there because I messed up with the letter. I should have never let you go through that alone. I never even wrote to her in prison. I haven’t got the right [to grieve].”

But Lisa told him he must and that she would stand by him through it all.

Now the family have to break the news to Joanie’s grandson Kyle which is set to be a heartbreaking affair.

• Emmerdale airs weeknights on ITV