Abdominal aortic aneurysm
Actress Lucille Ball died April 26, 1989 from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. At the time of her death, she was in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center recovering from emergency surgery performed just six days earlier because of a dissecting aortic aneurysm near her heart. Ball was at increased risk, as she had been a heavy smoker for decades.
Charles Ball
In 1816, his wife Judah died. Ball married a second time, Lucy, and was able to buy a small farm from money he had earned and saved. In 1830, he is traced down by the man who whipped him 21 years earlier, kidnapped and again taken to Georgia. He escapes again to learn that Lucy and the children have been kidnapped into slavery and his farm been taken by a white man. Because he legally still is a slave, he is not able to claim his rights, but has to relocate to Pennsylvania where he wrote his 1837 memoir, with the help of the white lawyer Isaac Fisher.