Robin Williams Died From ‘Asphyxia’: Those Who Make Us Laugh Till We Cry Often Die Due To Chronic Depression
Today the world is mourning for a man that made us cry from laughter. Robin Williams, the Academy Award-winning actor and comedian with “manic energy,” was found dead at his California home yesterday. A preliminary investigation has determined the cause of death of actor-comedian Robin Williams was suicide due to asphyxia. Apparently, the actor killed himself since he was extremely depressed.
In an extensive career that spanned almost half a century, the actor-comedian never failed to elicit a hearty laugh. From his small-screen breakthrough in the late 1970s as an alien in the hit TV show “Mork and Mindy,” through his stand-up act and such films as “Good Morning, Vietnam,” the short but barrel-chested Williams ranted, shouted, screeched, bellowed and yelled as if just sprung from a very long solitary confinement. Exceptionally loud, unusually fast and abnormally manic, he successfully parodied everyone from John Wayne to Keith Richards, impersonating a Russian immigrant as easily as a pack of Nazi attack dogs.
Despite showcasing a very happy persona, Robin Williams ended his life. The suicide is being marked as death by asphyxia, reported NJ. Simply translated, the actor committed a self-murder by denying oxygen to the brain and the body. Early stages of asphyxia suffocate the brain causing hallucination and dizziness, but prolonged, asphyxia can cause the brain to stop functioning and shut-down. The effects of asphyxia may be reversed if the body is supplied pure oxygen through a mask, but once the brain and the heart stop beating, the chances of recovering from asphyxia are almost nil.
The actor-comedian was found dead in his Tiburon home on Monday morning at 11:00 a.m. He was last seen alive just a night earlier at 10 p.m. So in all likelihood, the critically acclaimed celebrity planned his death by asphyxia and executed it, with his trademark precision, in the dead of the night.
Though a detailed autopsy and post-mortem investigation is still pending, Williams’ publicist Mara Buxbaum said that Williams “has been battling severe depression of late.” Williams himself had announced that in recent years he was drinking again. Though it sounds very painful now, he had apparently rebounded well enough to joke about it during his recent tour.
After having sobered up for about two decades, Robin Williams claimed that alcohol “wasn’t the issue.” However, he clearly battled depression. While it is not uncommon for comedians to suffer from acute depression, Robin had so much to look forward to. The world must be asking one painful question. Why, Robin, Why?
[Image Credit | NJ]
