Celebrity News June 08, 2016
Kimbo Slice Was Awaiting Heart Transplant When He Died
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New details have surfaced about heavyweight MMA fighter Kimbo Slice's health before he died Monday night at the age of 42.
Now, the South Florida Sun Sentinal reports that Slice, real name Kevin Ferguson, was awaiting a heart transplant.
He was admitted to Northwest Medical Center in Margate on June 3 and complained of “severe abdominal pain, shortness of breath and nausea.”
Medical documents obtained by the paper explained that Slice was put on a ventilator in intensive care with a plan to transport him to Cleveland, where he would await a heart.
His longtime manager Mike Imber shed further light on the situation, telling ESPN.com, "He went to Germany around March and got really sick while he was there. I don't know what he thought it was, but he just felt sick. On Friday (June 3), he had bad chest pains and went to the hospital. I went and visited him on Friday and he seemed OK. I didn't feel like I was going to lose my friend in two days, by any means. He seemed concerned, but he seemed all right.”
Imber continued, "I talked to him that Saturday and Sunday, and he was still in the hospital. I said, 'something's not right.' On Monday, his wife called and told me he had stopped breathing."
Slice was scheduled to fight James Thompson on July 16, but Mike Brown, his coach at American Top Team, said that his client planned to withdraw.
“He had a few things going on," Brown said. "He had a crazy hiccup problem and he had high blood pressure. He also had a problem that had something to do with his gall bladder. We had talked about him pulling out of the fight. That's what he was going to do. I don't know if he had done that officially yet, but a decision had already been made not to fight."
