'Aortic aneurysm that ruptured': Grant Wahl's wife reveals journalist's autopsy findings, rules out foul play
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: According to Grant Wahl's wife, Dr Celine Gounder, an autopsy performed by the New York City medical examiner revealed that the soccer journalist passed away from a 'slowly growing, undetected' ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium. Wahl passed away in Qatar while covering the FIFA World Cup at the age of 48. According to TMZ, Gounder revealed that “He had an autopsy done here in New York by the New York City Medical Examiner's Office, and it showed that he had an aortic aneurysm that ruptured.”
During his coverage of the Argentina-Netherlands quarterfinal, Wahl 'felt sick,' according to a spokeswoman for the Qatari World Cup organizing committee. He was then transported to Hamad General Hospital after paramedics performed CPR on him for several minutes at the scene. Gounder wrote on Wahl's website, "The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him. His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death."
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“I kept on asking: did he have a pulse? If he had a pulse when he left the stadium that would have been a good sign, but no one would answer the question. And so to me – I was scared. It's just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for whatever reason, it happened at this point in time," Gounder added. She went on to say, “While the world knew Grant as a great journalist, we knew him as a man who approached the world with openness and love. Grant was an incredibly empathetic, dedicated, and loving husband, brother, uncle, and son who was our greatest teammate and fan. We will forever cherish the gift of his life; to share his company was our greatest love and source of joy.”
According to NY Post, the recent revelation about the journalist’s autopsy comes after Grant Wahl's brother, Eric, announced his brother's death on Instagram and initially suggested that he may have been killed because he previously wore a rainbow-colored shirt to a game. On Tuesday, December 13, he walked back from his initial claim saying, "As soon as I heard about his death, the first thing I thought was that he had been murdered. I based it on things G said the last two times I talked to him. But obviously, I don't know anything for sure."