a blood clot shot up from his leg and blocked his lungs; a pulmonary embolism. He likely fell to the floor alone in a small room in Milan, gasping for air through excruciating pain, texting his caretaker to call an ambulance.
Yush drew his last breaths surrounded by Italian EMS workers who didn’t know his name, in a country that was not his.
Pulmonary embolisms are
rare in young people. In the United States, they are even
less common among Asian-Americans than white people. Yush was a lifelong long-distance runner; he was healthy and active. Statistically, he was among those least likely to suffer a pulmonary embolism.
However, according to
the website for the New York-based Institute for Limb Lengthening & Reconstruction, the development of a pulmonary embolism is a rare, but possible, risk: “Pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis... are rare with [limb lengthening] surgery, but they can occur and could lead to sudden shortness of breath, chronic leg swelling and even death.”
