Breaking on CNN: Richard Holbrook has died. No further information.

[madinmaryland]

"Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Rep. for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died, a senior administration official confirms."

From CNN.

[CTyankee]

1. What is a "torn aorta"? Does anyone here know? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Yes, he had a failure in the wall

six centimeters or longer are usually deadly.

Survival for these things is really low.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aortic_dissection

Last night when they said he was in critical condition after the first surgery... well they use a Kevlar sleeve to repair some of this... he had a chance. Once he went back to the ER I had a bad feeling about this.

RIP

[TwilightGardener]

4. The layers of the aorta (which is the biggest artery in the body) come apart, blood

enters the layers, balloons out, weakens the walls, rupture, massive instant blood loss, heart deprived of oxygen undergoes heart attack, kidneys have no pressure to filter. Doesn't always happen this way, and sometimes it's caught in the "balloon" stage before the vessel ruptures entirely, but it can basically make you drop dead.

[CTyankee]

5. So are you saying that he got in this "stage" before anyone could help him?

Man, that is bad...but how can that happen? Don't people have checkups to prevent his sort of thing?

[TwilightGardener]

6. It may have happened suddenly and progressed to full rupture right away, or

he may have had a weakened area (aneurysm) that just finally gave way for some reason. Sometimes people have symptoms like persistent upper back pain (that's the only one I remember). When I used to take care of these people, they would get a Goretex (I think) patch and were in ICU for a few days.

[Sherman A1]

2. Sad

I got to hear him speak once and it was an excellent evening.