How did Bob Saget die?
Bob Saget
May 17, 1956 — January 9, 2022
Orlando, Florida
Bob Saget died on January 9, 2022 in Orlando, Florida, aged 65. The official cause of death was blunt head trauma; accident.. Readers have raised 3 theories about how it happened.
Robert Lane Saget was born in Philadelphia, wanted to be a doctor, and was talked out of it by an English teacher who'd seen him be funny. He was sixty-five when he was found in a hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, the morning after a stand-up show in Jacksonville, with his phone and his wallet on the bed and no sign of anything wrong.
For eight years he was Danny Tanner on Full House, the cleanest dad on television, and for the same eight years he hosted America's Funniest Home Videos, and for the whole time, and for thirty years after, he was one of the filthiest comics working, which he considered the best joke of his life. He directed a film about a talking horse. He lost a sister to scleroderma and raised money for it for the rest of his life. He was, by the testimony of everyone from the Full House cast to the comedians who knew him from the road, the person who called when you were in trouble.
He is survived by his wife, Kelly Rizzo, and three daughters.
Photos with Bob
If you met him, this is where that photo goes. No one has added one yet.
The record
What is established, from the authorities and the people who were there.
Official cause: Blunt head trauma; accident. (Orange County, Florida medical examiner, February 2022)
He performed in Jacksonville on the night of January 8, 2022, and drove to Orlando, checking into the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes after 2 a.m. He texted his wife that he'd had a good show. The next afternoon, when he hadn't checked out, hotel security found him dead in bed. He was 65.
The Orange County medical examiner found that he died of blunt head trauma, accidental: a fracture at the back of the skull and bleeding around the brain, with bruising on the brain itself. The examiner concluded he had likely struck the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it, and gone to sleep. No drugs or alcohol beyond prescription medication were found; he had tested positive for COVID-19, but the examiner said it played no role. There were no signs of foul play, and the room was undisturbed.
The family sought and won a court order keeping the autopsy photographs and some records private. The examiner's description of the injury, a fracture more severe than a simple fall would usually produce, led several outside doctors to say publicly that it looked more like a serious blow than a bump, and the question of what he hit, and how, has never been answered.
What happened
The cause of death has been confirmed. The theories below are how readers understand it, and what people thought before it was known. Everyone here is anonymous.
A skull fracture at the back of the head, severe enough that doctors compared it to a bad fall or a blow, in an undisturbed hotel room with no sign of a struggle. What did he hit, and why didn't he know it was serious?
The page creator
- Confirmed46 of 54 readers find this likely
He hit the back of his head, hard, on something in the room, and went to sleep not knowing
The medical examiner's reading, and the family's. The most likely object is the bathroom: a slip on marble, the back of the head on the tub or the floor. He was tired after a show and a drive, it was 2 a.m., he felt a bump, lay down, and the bleeding did the rest. Nothing in the room contradicts it; nothing in the room confirms it either, which is why the page is here.
Anonymous. Says they are an ER physician.
Confirmed by the Orange County medical examiner, February 2022.
- Also raised31 of 41 readers find this likely
A fall worse than a slip: the headboard, or a fall with momentum
The outside doctors' objection taken seriously. The injury was described as something you'd see from a fall of some height, not a trip. A hotel headboard, a fall backward off the edge of a raised bed, a slip with real speed on a wet floor. Same cause of death, a more violent accident than "bumped his head" suggests, and one he'd have been more likely to notice.
Anonymous. Says they are a neurosurgeon.
- Also raised22 of 34 readers find this likely
COVID made him lightheaded, and that's why he fell
He tested positive at autopsy, and the examiner said the virus played no role in the death itself. But a man of 65 with an active infection, exhausted, at 2 a.m., is more likely to be dizzy and more likely to fall. Not the cause; maybe the reason.
Anonymous.
- Unlikely9 of 39 readers find this likely
Something other than a fall, and the undisturbed room is the problem
A skull fracture that severe in a room where nothing is out of place is the fact people can't get past. Law enforcement found no sign of anyone else, no struggle, and no injury elsewhere on his body. There is no evidence of foul play. There is also no explanation anyone has been able to verify. It stays on the page as what the room didn't say.
Anonymous.
The confirmed cause carries this mark and stays at the top. Theories can still be added; they sort below it.
A fracture at the back of the skull with bleeding around and bruising of the brain is a significant injury. People can and do walk away from such injuries feeling only dazed, especially if they are tired and alone, and then lose consciousness as the bleeding builds over the following hours. This is the pattern in many "talk and die" head injuries: a lucid interval, then decline, with no one present to notice.
What outside doctors flagged was the severity. A fall from standing onto a carpeted floor usually produces a milder injury than the one described. Hard edges, a bathtub, a headboard, or a fall with some height or speed produce injuries like this one. The medical examiner's conclusion was that a fall was most consistent with the evidence; the room offered nothing to say where.
Orange County Medical Examiner's report, February 9, 2022 Orange County Sheriff's Office investigative report, 2022 Statement from the Saget family, February 2022 Wikipedia, "Bob Saget"
Questions people ask
- What was Bob Saget's cause of death?
- The official cause of death was blunt head trauma; accident..
- When did Bob Saget die?
- Bob died on January 9, 2022, at the age of 65, in Orlando, Florida.
- What happened to Bob Saget?
- 4 theories have been raised on this page and ranked by readers. The cause is settled; the theories are about understanding how it happened.
- Who else died in 2022?
- See everyone on Ohbit who died in 2022. Bob was 65.
Add a theory
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