Ace Frehley, the influential founding guitarist of KISS, died on Thursday, his family confirmed. He was 74.
While no official cause of death has been confirmed, TMZ—who cited anonymous sources—reported that the rocker was on life support after falling in his studio a few weeks ago and suffering a brain bleed.
The Context
Known for his “Spaceman” persona and distinctive guitar work, Frehley’s death marks the first passing among the original members of one of America’s most iconic rock bands. His influence extended across generations of musicians and fans, helping to define the sound and spectacle of arena rock. The loss leaves a significant mark on the history of American music and culture, with tributes highlighting his artistic legacy and personal impact.
What To Know
Frehley died on October 16 in Morristown, New Jersey. In addition to TMZ’s report, NBC News cited a now-deleted Instagram post that reportedly stated doctors had advised him not to travel following the fall, forcing him to cancel some upcoming concerts.
He later canceled the remainder of his tour dates altogether. “Due to some ongoing medical issues, Ace has made the difficult decision to cancel the remainder of his 2025 dates,” a statement posted to Frehley’s official Instagram account read on October 6.
A nursing home resident known to wander and ingest foreign objects died after choking on ribbons at a facility in Adelaide’s north, an inquest has heard.
Ronald Maine, 71, was living in a secure unit at Helping Hand nursing home at Mawson Lakes when a staff member noticed he was pale, clammy and had blue fingertips after consuming morning tea on September 27, 2022.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Rebecca Schell, told the court Mr Maine had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia five years earlier, and had been assessed by Dementia Support Australia as having a high risk of choking.
She told the court Mr Maine had placed inedible object in his mouth, including clay and pearl beads, on three separate previous occasions.
Ronald Maine died at the Lyell McEwin Hospital three years ago. (Supplied: Jessica Maine)
On the morning he died, Ms Schell said nursing staff had sat him in a chair and put an oxygen mask on, but it was not until paramedics arrived that his airways were cleared and CPR performed.
“He was immediately repositioned to the ground and CPR was commenced,” she said.
“Prior to CPR, Mr Maine’s oral cavity was swept out and food and fabric ribbon were discovered.
“In total SAAS (South Australian Ambulance Service) officers removed three different pieces of fabric ribbon of varying colours from Mr Maine’s airway.”
Mr Maine was then transferred to the Lyell McEwin Hospital where he died later that day.
Ms Schell said that Mr Maine’s cause of death was determined as upper airway obstruction by food and foreign material on a background of frontotemporal dementia.
“Put simply, it is anticipated the court will hear that Mr Maine choked to death on the ribbons and food material that he had ingested,”
she said.
She said Helping Hand had completed an internal investigation after the incident and made its own recommendations about basic life support and choking training for all nursing staff.
“There is no doubt that those who performed first aid on Mr Maine, did so to the very best of their abilities, in what I understand was a very stressful situation for them,” she said.
Ronald Maine was a resident at Helping Hand nursing home at Mawson Lakes. (ABC News: Ashlin Blieschke)
But, she said the inquest would examine the training provided to staff before and since the incident and whether Mr Maine’s death could have been prevented.
“Ultimately, the inquest will consider the issue of whether appropriately administered first aid could have prevented the death of Mr Maine,” she said.
“This inquest will explore whether nursing staff in aged care facilities are receiving sufficient training in the provision of basic life support.
“This, in turn, may equip them to execute their duties in emergencies.”
She noted Deputy State Coroner Emma Roper, who is presiding over the inquest, may not be able to make a finding about where the ribbons came from.
She said Ms Roper may consider making a recommendation, when she hands down her findings at a later date.
That would be it is “vital that nursing staff have access to and undertake regular basic life support training to ensure they can provide and execute the appropriate level of care to residents in aged care facilities in the event of an emergency.”
Tendency to ingest inedible items
The enrolled nurse who first noticed Mr Maine was unwell, Juvy Rakoia, said she realised he was “sweaty all over” and had blue fingertips after she grabbed his hand to lead him to a chair.
She sad Mr Maine was known as a wanderer with a big appetite, and staff knew from his case notes and handover discussions between staff that he had a tendency to place inedible objects in his mouth.
“It’s common knowledge that Ron would sometimes be ingesting things that are not food,” Ms Rakoia said.
She told the court that upon noticing Mr Maine was unwell she called for another staff member, registered nurse Zijad Softic.
The inquest heard Helping Hand had conducted an internal investigation after Mr Maine’s death. (ABC News: Ashlin Blieschke)
She said she checked Mr Maine’s airways but could not see anything before an oxygen mask was applied.
“We checked his mouth, we swipe it out, there’s nothing anywhere,” she said.
She said because Mr Maine did not have teeth or dentures “so you can clearly see there was nothing in his mouth”.
She said she did not think he was choking because “from what I know, choking you would be gasping for air, coughing something, he wasn’t … doing all that”.
“He was eating throughout the day so I wouldn’t really think there was any obstruction, I couldn’t see anything,” she said.
During the triple-0 call, which was played to the court, Ms Rakoia explained that Mr Maine was pale, “very sweaty” and that he was breathing, but abnormally. She also told the operator there was no defibrillator available.
Mr Softic then took the phone and told the operator he could not do CPR because Mr Maine was still breathing.
“He’s basically, what I can see, he’s dying but he’s still breathing, probably 6-10 [breaths] a minute,” he said.
Ronald Maine had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, the inquest was told. (Supplied: Jessica Maine)
He said he was reluctant to move Mr Maine from the chair.
“I can’t do any resus because he’s still breathing,” he told the operator.
Family tribute
Outside court, Mr Maine’s daughter Jessica, said her father was a “huge Crows fan” who was “actually really happy before he passed away”.
“Dementia made him a lot more smiley than previously,” she said.
She urged families to carefully select aged care for their loved ones.
“If you can’t get care from an aged care home, then how can you be sure that your family is going to be safe,” she said.
“I think people need to be aware that you really need to have a look around and find a good home for your families.”
The inquest is continuing and is expected to hear from other witnesses including a paramedic and an expert geriatrician.
Nearly one year to the day after her shocking passing, we finally know exactly what took Sinéad O’Connor’s life.
After the beloved Irish singer was tragically found unresponsive in her London home last July, police opened an investigation but declared that her death was “not being treated as suspicious.” Updates were slim, but six months later in January, a representative for London’s Southwark Coroner’s Court confirmed to TMZ that the late activist died of “natural causes.” There weren’t many other details, but the coroner “ceased their investigation in her death” after coming to the conclusion.
But we now know exactly what those “natural causes” were.
On Sunday, multiple outlets cited her death certificate, which reveals the late 56-year-old passed away as the result of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. According to the certificate, she was also battling a respiratory tract infection at the time of her death. The certificate officially declares her death as:
“Exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and bronchial asthma together with low grade lower respiratory tract infection.”
So sad.
According to the Irish Independent, Sinéad’s death was officially registered by her ex-husband John Reynolds on Wednesday in Lambeth, London. The activist’s death was certified by Julian Morris, senior coroner for Inner South London.
Kevin Ransom, a renowned freelance journalist from Dearborn celebrated for his engaging and unforgettable music writing, died from hypertensive cardiovascular disease, Wayne County officials told Metro Times on Thursday.
Because of his health problems, Ransom had gained a lot of weight but recently lost about 30 pounds by adopting a new diet and cutting out alcohol, according to his friend Matt Roush, a longtime tech journalist who is now managing editor of Lawrence Technological University’s media services for Yellow Flag Productions.
In the latter stages of his life, Ransom lost touch with his family and many of his friends, and a funeral was never held.
Although Ransom was a prolific writer on numerous subjects, he was most known for his compelling, in-depth music writing. He admired local music and helped shine a light on bands that weren’t yet nationally known. He was particularly fond of folk, roots, blues, alternative, and 1960s rock.
Ransom also wrote about the auto industry, entertainment, business, the environment, and general features. His work appeared in more than two dozen publications, including Rolling Stone, The Detroit News, Ann Arbor News, Guitar Player, Automotive News, Heritage Newspapers, and Ford World.
He had been a freelance reporter for decades.
Despite his popularity among music fans, Ransom had financial troubles. He lived in a modest bungalow in Dearborn, which was originally built by his grandparents in 1949. He bought the house in 2002 after the death of his grandmother.
In the years before his death, Ransom sported a big, white flowing beard.
The autopsy should have been a piece of cake. My patient had a history of widely metastatic cancer, which was pretty straightforward as far as causes of death go. Entering the various body cavities, my colleague and I found what we anticipated: Nearly every organ was riddled with tumors. But after we had completed the work, I realized that I knew why the patient had died, but not why he’d died that day. We found no evidence of a heart attack or blood clot or ruptured bowel. Nothing to explain his sudden demise. Yes, he had advanced cancer—but he’d been living with that cancer the day before he died, and over many weeks and months preceding. I asked my colleague what he thought. Perhaps there had been some subtle change in the patient’s blood chemistry, or in his heart’s electrical signaling, that we simply couldn’t see? “I guess the patient just up and died,” he said.
I’m a hospital pathologist; my profession is one of many trying to explain the end of life. In that role, I have learned time and again that even the most thorough medical exams leave behind uncertainty. Take the current spate of heat-related fatalities brought on by a summer of record-breaking temperatures. Residents of Phoenix endured a month of consecutive 110-degree days. People have been literally sizzling on sidewalks. And news organizations are taking note of what is said to be a growing body count: 39 heat deaths in Maricopa County, Arizona; 10 in Laredo, Texas. But the precision of these figures is illusory. Cause of death cannot be measured as exactly as the temperature, and what qualifies as “heat-related” will always be a judgment call: Some people die from heat; others just up and die when it happens to be hot.
Mortality is contested ground, a place where different types of knowledge are in conflict. In Clark County, Nevada, for example, coroners spend weeks investigating possible heat-related deaths. Families are interviewed, death scenes are inspected, and medical tests are performed. The coroner must factor in all of these sources of information because no single autopsy finding can definitively diagnose a heat fatality. A victim may be found to have suffered from hyperthermia—an abnormally high body temperature—or they may be tossed into the more subjective bucket of those who died from ”environmental heat stress.”
Very few deaths undergo such an extensive forensic examination in the first place. Most of the time, the circumstances appear straightforward—a 75-year-old has a stroke; a smoker succumbs to an exacerbation of his chronic lung disease—and the patient’s primary-care doctor or hospital physician completes the death certificate on their own. But heat silently worsens many preexisting conditions; oppressive temperatures can cause an already dysfunctional organ to fail. A recent study out of China estimated that mortality from heart attacks can rise as much as 74 percent during a severe, several-day heat wave. Another study from the U.S. found that even routine temperature fluctuations can subtly alter kidney function, cholesterol levels, and blood counts. Physicians can’t easily tease out these influences. If an elderly man on a park bench suddenly slouches over from a heart attack in 90-degree weather, it’s hard to say for sure whether the heat was what did him in. Epidemiologists must come to the rescue, using statistics to uncover those hidden causes at the population level. This bird’s-eye view shows a simple fact: Bad weather means more death. But it still doesn’t tell us what to think about the man on the bench.
Research (and common sense) tells us that some individuals are going to be especially vulnerable to climate risks. Poverty, physical labor, substandard housing, advanced age, and medical comorbidities all put one in greater danger of experiencing heat-related illness. The weather has a way of kicking you while you’re down, and the wealthy and able-bodied are better able to dodge the blows. A financial struggle as small as an unpaid $51 portion of an electricity bill can prove deadly in the summer. In the autopsies I’ve performed, a patient’s family, medical record, and living situation often told a story of long-term social neglect. But there was no place on the death certificate for me to describe these tragic circumstances. There was certainly no checkbox to indicate that climate change contributed to a fatality. Such matters were out of my jurisdiction.
The public-health approach to assessing deaths has its own problems. Mostly it’s confusing. Reams of scientific studies have reported on hundreds of different risk factors for mortality. Sultry weather appears to be dangerous, but so do skipping breakfast, taking naps, and receiving care from a male doctor. Researchers have declared just about everything a major killer. A few months ago, the surgeon general announced that feeling disconnected is as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. The FDA commissioner has said that misinformation is the nation’s leading cause of premature death. And is poverty or medical error the fourth-leading cause? I can’t keep track.
With so many mortality statistics at our disposal, which ones get emphasized can be more a matter of politics than science. Liberals see the current heat wave—and its wave of heat-related deaths—as an urgent call to action to combat climate change, while conservatives dismiss this concern as a mental disorder. A recent Wall Street Journalop-ed concluded that worrying about climate change is irrational, because “if heat waves were as deadly as the press proclaims, Homo sapiens couldn’t have survived thousands of years without air conditioning.” (Humans survived thousands of years without penicillin, but syphilis was still a net negative.) Similarly, when COVID became the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., pandemic skeptics said it was a fiction: Victims were dying “with COVID,” not “from COVID.” Because many people who died of SARS-CoV-2 had underlying risk factors, some politicians and doctors brushed off the official numbers as hopelessly confounded. Who could say whether the virus had killed anyone at all?
The dismissal of COVID’s carnage was mostly cynical and unscientific. But it’s true that death certificates paint one picture of the pandemic, and excess-death calculations paint another. Scientists will be debating COVID’s exact body count for decades. Fatalities from heat are subject to similar ambiguities, even as their determination comes with real-world consequences. In June, for example, officials from Multnomah County, Oregon—where Portland is located—sued oil and gas producers over the effects of a 2021 heat wave that resulted in 69 heat-related deaths, as officially recorded. This statistic will likely be subjected to intense cross-examination. The pandemic showed us that casting doubt on the deceased is a convenient strategy.
No matter how we count the bodies, extreme weather leads to suffering—especially among the most vulnerable members of society. A lot of people have already perished during this summer’s heat wave. Their passing is more than a coincidence—not all of them just up and died.
Ryan Koss, 35, of Dorset, voluntarily appeared at the state police Shaftsbury barracks in southwest Vermont and was issued a citation charging him with grossly negligent operation with death resulting.
Koss turned his 2008 Honda Element into a parking lot, “into the path of Mr. Williams’ motorcycle,” police said in a statement.
Williams, 71, sustained critical injuries. He was airlifted to Albany Medical Center in New York, where he was pronounced dead from what the state medical examiner determined was “severe trauma and blood loss as a result of the crash,” police said.
Koss was processed on the charge and was allowed to leave to await an arraignment set for Sept. 25 in Vermont Superior Court in Bennington.
Koss sustained minor injuries and his vehicle had “major damage” to the front passenger side, according to the police statement.
Williams was riding a 1986 Honda Shadow VT700C, which police said received “front-end damage.” The actor was wearing a helmet at the time.
Williams curated an acclaimed Broadway, film and television career spanning nearly 50 years.
“It is with great sadness that we report that our beloved Treat Williams has passed away in Dorset, Vermont after a fatal motorcycle accident … To all his fans, please know that Treat appreciated all of you,” his family said in a statement to Deadline at the time.
The actor was best known for playing Dr. Andrew Brown on “Everwood” from 2002 to 2006. He also starred in the film adaptation of “Hair” and Sidney Lumet’s 1981 crime drama “Prince of the City.” Both roles earned him Golden Globe nominations.
