The Results of Jordan’s Autopsy

To all of you who have helped us through this tragedy, Lisa, Phillip and I would like to share the final results of Jordan’s autopsy, cardiac pathology and cause of death. While we had hoped that the results would have come sooner, activities in Dallas prevented final review by the cardiac pathologist until recently. The autopsy performed in Kansas City stated Jordan’s cause of death as “cardiac arrhythmia or possible channelopathy”. There were no other findings as his toxicology report did not reveal any organic abnormalities and was totally clean.

Initially we all, friends and family, wanted to know the cause of the arrhythmia, but we also prepared ourselves for never fully understanding. Fortunately with Jordan’s Grandfather being a cardiologist he was able to have Jordan’s heart sent to a world renowned cardiac pathologist who did further studies and determined that Jordan had an abnormality of one of the coronary arteries (they supply blood to the heart muscle). This is called an anomalous coronary artery, and it had been present since birth. The course of the artery over the heart was such that it could be constricted, temporarily blocking blood flow to parts of the heart. Usually with this anomaly, as in Jordan’s case, there is no damage to the heart but may result in a serious or even fatal rhythm disturbance or arrhythmia. It is a leading cause of sudden death in athletes, even though Jordan’s event did not occur during athletic competition. It is a relatively rare malformation, and usually cannot be detected before an event occurs. In Jordan’s situation there were no symptoms to suggest this anomaly was present which would have led to further investigation.

This anomaly is not linked to heredity or so far, any genetic pattern. Even so, as you might expect, Phillip has been thoroughly tested and has a clean bill of health.

Finally, there is no way to express how important your thoughts, prayers, emails, cards and letters have been to our family. You have inspired us to perpetuate Jordan’s Legacy through his foundation. Now that we have a cause we also have a purpose, Jordan’s passing will benefit many. Or as Jordan would point out, “the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do!”

With sincerest love and appreciation for sharing memories of Jordan’s life with us!

Phil, Lisa and Phillip

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at 8:38 pm and is filed under The Latest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.