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Grant Wahl drops dead


Brisketexan

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1 hour ago, Ted Lange said:

9 AM in Doha.  Nothing from Fox or that shitbag Clay Travis wanna be Alexi Lalas.   Feel like they are waiting on instructions from their overlords. 

1) Grant Wahl worked with Fox Sports until last year or so.

2) Grant knew everyone in the US Soccer journalism world.

3) It sounds like Grant & Alexi were friends…

 

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The day that story came out about the American Journalist wearing rainbow and getting detained I told my family they all need to be very careful over there. I understand wanting to make a statement and stand up to their religious Muslim bullshit but when you're on their soil you're at their mercy. I was afraid if they kept pressing the issue something was going to happen to someone.

I'm not at all surprised by this. Qatar is a scum country like many others in the region and they know with their oil leverage the US govt won't do shit about it just like it didn't when American citizen Kashoggi was tortured and murdered by the Saudis.

I don't know if Grant thought his American citizenship would protect him there if he protested but I just hope he knew the risk and was willing to accept it to make his stand and not just ignorant of the real danger he was in by doing it. 

This could be coincidence but I'd think the most likely scenario is the shit people who kill their own for no reason at all and know they'll get away with killing a US journalist took the opportunity to do it. And the US won't do a damn thing about it and will try to divert attention from it. 

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The Times of London finally released an article and it's tragic.  The episode occurred during extra time of the Argentina/Netherlands game and continued through the penalty shootout.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grant-wahl-death-heart-attack-tribute-qatar-world-cup-6bzp3xfwq

It might be behind a paywall so here are some excerpts:

"So it was during extra time of the Holland vs Argentina match, at Lusail Stadium in Doha on Friday night.

It had been the game of the tournament, riveting, feisty, full of surprises and featuring a stunning Dutch comeback. But then a panicked voice rang out from the press box: we need a medic. We all turned around to see a man in terrifying distress just behind us, clearly suffering some form of attack or seizure. We bellowed for a medic."

"The medics came quickly. I felt momentarily reassured. Perhaps it was a seizure. Maybe he needed an epipen. But they quickly started administering CPR and the entire press box was gripped with anxiety. CPR is a terrible sign. His heart must have stopped."

"Why wasn’t there a defibrillator? That was the question we kept asking each other, as the medics pumped and pumped to no avail. At this billion dollar state-of-the-art stadium, which has a VIP suite so lavish it includes a bedroom, which will host the World Cup final, why was there no defibrillator to hand? Many minutes passed and we kept expecting it to come. But it never did."

"Someone brought a saline drip, to what end I can’t imagine. The medics kept on pumping. Eventually a stretcher came to take Wahl away. His face was covered. We all knew. It was reportedly a heart attack. Just minutes earlier, he’d been tweeting excitedly about the game."

On the pitch, the penalty shoot-out concluded. Argentina won. Holland lost. Who cared? ...The only important thing was that a good man had inexplicably lost his life."

 

FUBAR.

Fuck Qatar.

RIP Grant.

 

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3 minutes ago, Captain Ron said:

 


It's hard to "overstate" just how significant Grant was in football's growth in the U.S....


Underestimate & Overstate do not mean the same thing.

Rory apparently is a writer/journalist. Perhaps he was sad and not thinking clearly. Oh, and he's British, so probably self-taught if he's also a soccer fan.

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9 minutes ago, McCroskey said:

The Times of London finally released an article and it's tragic.  The episode occurred during extra time of the Argentina/Netherlands game and continued through the penalty shootout.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grant-wahl-death-heart-attack-tribute-qatar-world-cup-6bzp3xfwq

It might be behind a paywall so here are some excerpts:

"So it was during extra time of the Holland vs Argentina match, at Lusail Stadium in Doha on Friday night.

It had been the game of the tournament, riveting, feisty, full of surprises and featuring a stunning Dutch comeback. But then a panicked voice rang out from the press box: we need a medic. We all turned around to see a man in terrifying distress just behind us, clearly suffering some form of attack or seizure. We bellowed for a medic."

"The medics came quickly. I felt momentarily reassured. Perhaps it was a seizure. Maybe he needed an epipen. But they quickly started administering CPR and the entire press box was gripped with anxiety. CPR is a terrible sign. His heart must have stopped."

"Why wasn’t there a defibrillator? That was the question we kept asking each other, as the medics pumped and pumped to no avail. At this billion dollar state-of-the-art stadium, which has a VIP suite so lavish it includes a bedroom, which will host the World Cup final, why was there no defibrillator to hand? Many minutes passed and we kept expecting it to come. But it never did."

"Someone brought a saline drip, to what end I can’t imagine. The medics kept on pumping. Eventually a stretcher came to take Wahl away. His face was covered. We all knew. It was reportedly a heart attack. Just minutes earlier, he’d been tweeting excitedly about the game."

On the pitch, the penalty shoot-out concluded. Argentina won. Holland lost. Who cared? ...The only important thing was that a good man had inexplicably lost his life."

 

FUBAR.

Fuck Qatar.

RIP Grant.

 


HOLY CRAP!!

If all that was needed was a defibrillator to save him... holy shit!

What a clusterfuck!

That "country"... just a city on the water with a gushing natural gas pipe nearby trying to use a soccer tournament to turn itself into a country. 

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42 minutes ago, Napoleon said:


It's hard to "overstate" just how significant Grant was in football's growth in the U.S....


Underestimate & Overstate do not mean the same thing.

Rory apparently is a writer/journalist. Perhaps he was sad and not thinking clearly. Oh, and he's British, so probably self-taught if he's also a soccer fan.

Yeah either that or easy to underestimate. 

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HOLY CRAP!!
If all that was needed was a defibrillator to save him... holy shit!
What a clusterfuck!
That "country"... just a city on the water with a gushing natural gas pipe nearby trying to use a soccer tournament to turn itself into a country. 

If it was blockage on the LAD artery and it ruptured, a defib isn’t doing anything.
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It’s either foul play (1%) or blatant negligence (99%).    No defibrillator and no ambulance.    Shit hole country.  

Brother says he was murdered. Wife’s “in shock”. Both I assume talked to grant daily. A man who’s been alive and I assume healthy for 48 years?(17000 days)
In 19 days he wore a controversial shirt in a region it’s clearly not allowed. He received death threats for it according to his brother…and then has the balls to slam the Qatari government for not caring about migrant deaths leading up to this WC and a day later hes dead?

You have the numbers right…but by the sake of odds, your causes of death need to be flipped.
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2 minutes ago, dieucla98 said:

They put him in a fucking Uber to go to the hospital. They just wave their blatant disregard for life so brazenly in our face. Unbelievable, even for Qatar.

My guess is that they put his lifeless, but still warm body into some vehicle to transport it to the hospital so that they could do all of the official stuff. 

Fairly center that having four games/day for two+ weeks straight that were also close enough for him to attend one to two per day wreaked havoc on his body. 

He was probably getting 3 to 5 hours of sleep day after day.

From kickoff to final whistle would have been 11 hours every day. Then there is a meal on the backend, typing into the night, phone & zoom interviews with people overseas, getting cleaned up, getting breakfast, getting to where or tracking down whomever…

Just really strange.  

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4 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

It’s either foul play (1%) or blatant negligence (99%).    No defibrillator and no ambulance.    Shit hole country.  

First heard of the tragedy at 1 am. My thought at the time was of WTF. The article I read only mentioned he had been feeling bad for two nights and had not been able to sleep. After reading this thread I am pissed off that he passed at a minimum from negligence.

RIP 

p.s. Thanks to all those that have provided great information in this thread for those of us that are less informed.

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1 minute ago, Jerry Callo said:

I've had the TV on Fox since 8:30, and I haven't heard mention of Wahl's death once. No "with heavy hearts" - no "thoughts and prayers" - nothing.

you missed the opening of the pre-game, rob stone gave a 2-minute tribute and barely held it together, and about minute 40 during the game, ian said a few words

it has not been whitewashed as predicted

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The press box of a major sporting event is definitely a place that an AED should be available. If it’s true that there wasn’t one there within a matter of minutes, that is extreme negligence on someone’s part. 
 

Most of us here were glued to the TV yesterday and thrilled by what we were watching. It’s really devastating to learn that he was literally dying in those very moments while we were cheering on the game. 

Edited by tokamak
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Terrifying to think about that happening so far away from home at a bad time, in a bad place, with incompetent infastructure all around you in a life or death situation. Fucking fuck. Chilling and tragic.

I just listened to his pod episode after the Iran win. Toward the end he talked about the relationships and camraderie amongst the international WC media community. He shouted out two reporters who had covered 17(!) World Cups. Just gut wrenching that this will be Grant's last.

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