Failing Health and Death
In early 2005, Falwell was hospitalized for two weeks with a viral infection, discharged, and then rehospitalized on May 30, 2005, in respiratory arrest. President George W. Bush contacted Falwell to "wish him well." He was subsequently released from the hospital and returned to his duties. Later in 2005 a stent was implanted to treat a 70% blockage in his coronary arteries.
On May 15, 2007, Falwell was found without pulse and unconscious in his office about 10:45 am after missing a morning appointment and was taken to Lynchburg General Hospital.
"I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast.... He went to his office, I went to mine and they found him unresponsive" said Ron Godwin, the executive vice president of Falwell's Liberty University. His condition was initially reported as "gravely serious"; CPR was administered unsuccessfully. As of 2:10 pm, during a live press conference, a doctor for the hospital confirmed that Falwell had died of "cardiac arrhythmia, or sudden cardiac death." A statement issued by the hospital reported he was pronounced dead at Lynchburg General Hospital at 12:40 pm, EST. Falwell's family, including his wife Macel and sons Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Jonathan Falwell, were at the hospital at the time of the pronouncement.
Falwell's funeral took place at 1:00 pm EDT on May 22, 2007 at Thomas Road Baptist Church after lying in repose at both the church and Liberty University. Falwell's burial service was private. It took place at a spot on the Liberty University campus near the Carter Glass Mansion, near his office. Buried nearby is B. R. Lakin.
After his death, his two sons succeeded him at his two posts; Jerry Falwell, Jr. took over as Chancellor of Liberty University while Jonathan Falwell became the Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church.
The last televised interview with Jerry Falwell was conducted by Christiane Amanpour for the CNN original series CNN Presents: God's Warriors. He had been interviewed on May 8, one week before his death. Falwell's last televised sermon was his May 13, 2007 message on Mother's Day.
Read more about this topic: Jerry Falwell
Famous quotes containing the words failing, health and/or death:
“As he watched from windows in the failing light
For his world that was always just out of sight
Where weakness was part of the ordinary landscape
And the friendly road knew his footstep, his footstep.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The ideal of men and women sharing equally in parenting and working is a vision still. What would it be like if women and men were less different from each other, if our worlds were not so foreign? A male friend who shares daily parenting told me that he knows at his very core what his wife’s loving for their daughter feels like, and that this knowing creates a stronger bond between them.”
—Anonymous Mother. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 6 (1978)
“I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so.
For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span;
A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.
So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep.
For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.”
—A.C. (Algernon Charles)