Grant Wahl Died of an Aortic Aneurysm — Here's What to Know About the 'Silent Killer'

Mar. 15, 2025

Grant Wahl.

His wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, said she knew there was no stopping his death. “No amount of CPR or shockswould have saved him,” she wrote on Wahl’s Substack. Wahldied last weekat age 48.

Aneurysms are often known as “a silent killer” because people are unaware they have them until they’ve ruptured, and they often result in death, according toThe Washington Post.

An aorta is the large artery that carries the blood from the heart through the chest and torso. An aortic aneurysm is aballoon-like buglethat develops in the aorta, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The force of blood pumping can rupture an aneurysm, which results in internal bleeding.

The CDC reports that more than 9,900 people died of aortic aneurysms or aortic dissections (when the layers of the artery wall split and blood leaks between them) in 2019, with close to 60 percent of them occurring in men.

CNN reports that aortic aneurysms happen in abouttwo out of every 100,000people.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that men between the ages of 65 and 75 who have ever smoked get an ultrasound screening for abdominal aortic aneurysms, even if they they have no symptoms, according to the CDC.

It’s important to get screened because the majority of aortic aneurysms are asymptomatic, theWashington Postreports.

In some cases, there are symptoms.

Gounder said the chest pressure her husband experienced before his death could have been a symptom.

According to the CDC, unhealthy behaviors, including smoking, that damage the heart could increase the risk for an aortic aneurysm. Other factors include high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol and hardened arteries.

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Connective tissue disorders like Marfan syndrome and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, as well as having a family history of aortic aneurysms, could increase the chances of a person having one.

It’s rare to survive an event like an aortic aneurysm, CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Tara Narula told the outlet.

“Normally there’s no blood in that space. And what can happen is if there’s enough blood that gets in there, the heart essentially can’t beat because it sort of compresses the heart, and you can have a cardiac arrest,” Narula said.

source: people.com