“An autopsy was performed by the NYC Medical Examiner’s Office. Grant died from the rupture of a slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium…There was nothing nefarious about his death.” – Grant’s wife, Céline Gounder https://t.co/o9KTIHPcor
— Anthony DeRosa (@Anthony) December 14, 2022
Per NYMag:
… Wahl was covering the World Cup in Qatar when he suddenly collapsed during a match last Friday. He was given medical assistance at the stadium and transferred to a hospital, but was later pronounced dead. Wahl’s body was transported back to the United States and an autopsy was conducted by the New York City medical examiner’s office.
The circumstances of Wahl’s death immediately prompted speculation and suspicion. Wahl, who had been treated for bronchitislike symptoms before his death, had previously reported being blocked from attending a match by Qatari officials because he wore a shirt with a rainbow design on it. He had also written highly critical posts about the organizers of the tournament, citing their record of alleged human-rights abuses. In the immediate aftermath of Wahl’s death, his brother Eric said in an Instagram video that he believed there was foul play involved, pointing to death threats Wahl had received. In recent days, Eric Wahl backed away from those claims.
I’m OK, but that was an unnecessary ordeal. Am in the media center, still wearing my shirt. Was detained for nearly half an hour. Go gays 🌈 https://t.co/S3INBoCz89
— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) November 21, 2022
Gounder said that CPR and other forms of aid likely wouldn’t have saved her husband, and quickly shut down other theories that have been rampant online.
“His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death,” she said.
Wahl was likely the most esteemed soccer journalist in America, having covered the rise of the sport in the U.S. for 20 years, in Sports Illustrated and then independently. He also wrote widely about other sports during his long tenure, including a famous 2002 profile of a teenage LeBron James.
Sports illustrated fired him for challenging their pay cuts during the pandemic.
He ran to unseat FIFA’s president.
He challenged human rights abuses in Qatar.
RIP Grant Wahl, who’s career was as much about great reporting as it was about speaking truth to abusive power.
— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) December 10, 2022
Grant Wahl was the first soccer writer I can remember reading on the internet, and pushed harder to make Americans love the sport like he did. It worked. I hope he knows that.
A horrendous loss.
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) December 10, 2022
One more thing, I see a lot of people talking about how his kindness, his principles, and his willingness to help others are irreplaceable, which they are but
That has to be you now
You have to be that person for someone
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) December 10, 2022
trollhattan
Was crushed by his loss. Came across him 5+ year ago and had appreciated his writing ever since. Knew he was an advocate but did not know the breadth of his impact.
He’s missed, and I feel very sorry for his wife and family. Good people.
zhena gogolia
Very sad. I never heard of him until he died.
Brachiator
It’s unfortunate that Wahl’s death became the background to conspiracy nonsense.
I hope his family can find some peace.
Ella in New Mexico
Pitiful. Nothing short of surgery right on the spot could have saved him. Even if he’d been in a hospital prepping to go to the OR to repair that AAA he’d have only had like a 10-20 % chance of survival if it ruptured before they started. Poor guy.
pat
A few years ago a friend in her 40s died of a ruptured aneurysm. When I saw my primary care provider last week I told her that the only thing I really was afraid of was an aneurysm. So she scheduled an ultrasound and I don’t have to worry about it. Thank goodness.
But what a terrible loss, for his family and for the sport!
PaulB
I’m relieved that it wasn’t nefarious and that the cause of death was so quickly discovered and communicated. I hope his family gets some small comfort from that. But so heart-wrenching to see someone like that taken in his prime.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
I feel for everyone affected by his loss. Something so sudden, unpredictable…and permanent. Hurts like hell.
I admire Gounder’s strength in dealing with the rumor mill. Sucks that she had to.
Dan B
Grant Wahl’s support for LGBTQ in Qatar made me feel so good about him. I believe his brother is gay so there’s a personal motivation. Still it was a big risk to take in a conservative Wahhabist country. It speaks to his humanity and his courage. I’ve been in many situations where my personal safety was in danger because I was gay and it’s hard to push down the feelings of panic.
JML
It’s a tremendous loss for anyone who loved soccer or great writing, because Grant consistently gave us both. I’ve been reading his stuff for like 20 years and I learned so much about the game from him (and I played varsity in high school and refereed for a decade).
And he always went after the corrupt, the greedy, the bigots, and the assholes. He wrote fearlessly. (I’ve often wondered what it would have been like if he’d covered politics.)
Just a tragedy. And goodness he would have loved this final. It’s too bad we’ll never get to read his take on it (unless you pull it off Lucien’s shelves in the Library of The Dreaming…)
JoyceH
@pat:
Does anyone else think that medical protocols ought to be that everyone routinely get certain scans after a certain age? A couple generations ago, the first sign of heart disease was often when the person dropped dead of a heart attack. Now they do blood work and if the numbers warrant, send people to be scanned and checked, and they can often head off the heart attack before it happens.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
This was his greatest dispatch as a reporter (link)
He had so many great posts. It sucks. It reminds me of when Life magazine lost the incomparable Larry Burrows at age 45 in Laos.
pat
@JoyceH:
That is obviously an excellent idea, but first you have to get people to go for routine checkups and you have to have a system to PAY for them.
gene108
@JoyceH:
Can’t force people to see the doctor for preventive care.
Edit: The amount of testing that can be done on the human body, with the technology we have, is quite vast. We can’t do all the testing. There’s too many. What gets left out on this expanded standard of care? Whose condition gets missed, because that test isn’t part of the new standard? It’s not easy to decide.
Qrop Non Sequitur
@gene108: But you can make the care available and set standards for the care received for those who show.
gene108
@Qrop Non Sequitur:
I edited my last comment.
TL;DR: Too many medical tests are available to give people all the tests. Some tests will be left off and some conditions missed.
PAM Dirac
@JML:
I think that is what I picked up from reading him. He had this huge reservoir of optimism that the game was so good that revealing the corruption and other ugly parts would only make it better by fixing those things. I don’t think he was wrong. Like rocket launches and Mars landings, there is something optimistic about seeing a group of people work so hard and commit so much to achieve a common goal. In all those things there are legitimate questions about how much the goal is really worth, but it still it gives me a feeling that maybe, just maybe working together for a common goal isn’t completely gone.
pat
OK, not to derail the thread, but a good friend, whose family had a history of the male members dying early of a heart attack, lost her brother (in his 60s) to a heart attack as he was shoveling snow on her sidewalk last Christmas.
He had no dr. no regular checkups, and was supposedly healthy until he was lying dead outside her front door.
Sorry, I don’t mean to take away from the truly tragic loss of a man who was doing great things.
JML
@PAM Dirac: I think you’re absolutely right!
Starfish
@JoyceH: Things are moving more in this direction.
Starfish
@pat:
This is a good reminder! MEN GO GET YOUR ANNUAL PHYSICALS. We know you are not doing it if you are not married.
eclare
@Ella in New Mexico: My grandmother was in the hospital getting a mammogram when the same thing happened to her. Drs said *maybe* if she had been younger, she would have had a chance, but as it was there was nothing they could do.
And she was in a huge metro hospital when it happened.
So sad, he was so young.
Alison Rose
He really was a giant in the soccer community here, and by all accounts just a great man. I will say that while I thought the conspiracies around his death were far-fetched, it’s good to have it confirmed as unsuspicious, even if the manner is still heartbreaking for someone so young.
PAM Dirac
@Starfish:
Without a doubt. At the very least make sure blood pressure and cholesterol are monitored and get regular colonoscopies. I just had colonoscopy #5. With the number of adenomatous polyps I have had removed, I likely would be battling colon cancer now if I haven’t kept up with the screening. I know they are about as far from fun as you can get, but they are important.
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish:
Wrong.
Edmund Dantes
Grant Wahl was the first us writer I read regularly for soccer. It was great to be able to actually read from an American that loved the sport so much. A big part of my fandom grew with his career. Hated when he left SI. It was harder and harder to find him as he moved around.
His fandom was huge but also not so big that he wouldn’t talk about the parts others would gloss over.
Edmund Dantes
@Starfish: we wouldn’t accept this remark going the other direction. We shouldn’t be making it all.
Everyone should be making sure they get their annual physicals.
HinTN
@JoyceH:
Medicare gladly paid for an aortic ultrasound, which my PCP insisted I get, because that’s what they do.
Geminid
The suspicion that Qatar engineered Mr. Wahl’s death is understandable. The nation of Qatar attracts a lot of animus, and much of it is well-founded. People are ready to believe the worst about a government (or person) they dislike.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Sample size = 1 ?
lowtechcyclist
@Gin & Tonic:
A sample size of one is all you need to prove that a rule isn’t universally true.
JoyceH
@HinTN:
Cynically, I can’t help wondering if doctors are a lot quicker to order tests when you’ve got that Medicare card. Not that I’m complaining, I’ll take all the preventive care they want to give me. Adding to my wish list – in my perfect world, anyone over, say, 60 or 65 ought to have the go-ahead to get physical therapy on their own say-so.
Nicole
@Edmund Dantes:
That’s because it’s not as true going the other direction. Single men ARE less likely to see a doctor than married men; there’s data to back it up:
https://blog.swedish.org/swedish-blog/married-men-are-more-likely-to-go-to-the-doctor-here-s-why
Which certainly isn’t to say the answer is mEn nEdD tO gEt mArRiEd, but it does open up looking into what are the circumstances than contribute to married men seeing doctors more often than single men.
pat
Coming back to the thread after supper, my friend’s brother was kind of a jerk and every woman he had a relationship with recognized it and he was never married.
He just thought he knew everything better…
Edmund Dantes
@Nicole: hey women don’t forget to get your oil changed. We know you aren’t unless you are married.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Only the good die young, unlike a certain Stodger Rone, who probably is only alive because he has been bathing in the blood of young male virgins. There is also Tonald Drump who may also only be alive (despite his atrocious diet) because he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for long life, wealth and power. The stipulation was that he would destroy everything he touches. Or so it has been rumored. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
pat
@Edmund Dantes:
Haha. Married women have a hubby to change their oil… Wait, that sounds weird..
I am married and my hubby has absolutely nothing to do with my car. And I have nothing to do with his.
JCJ
@pat: If looking for an abdominal aortic aneurysm an abdominal ultrasound could be done, but if looking for an ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (like what Grant Wahl’s cause of death) an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) or chest CT would be needed. If evaluating for a cerebral aneurysm then a CT angiogram or MR angiography would be needed.
pat
@JCJ:
Interesting. I wondered about that ascending aortic aneurysm.
Maybe next time I have to ask for that…
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Nicole: Perhaps it’s as simple as having an outside close observer, such as someone who can hear if you have difficulty breathing while you sleep, for example.
And the power of a simple statement such as “I don’t want to lose you” can’t be overestimated.
Mike S
I spoke with him briefly the day he was detained for the shirt. A show I work on was interviewing him so it was small talk about weather and food to get levels and sound quality. He seemed to be a really nice guy and the interview went great. We were all crushed when the news of his death came across the wire.