Struggling MMA icon desperately needed $2 million to survive health battle. His biggest donors were his 'enemies'
'And I’m grateful that they felt generous enough, but then also we don’t want to talk about it too much...'
Former MMA and wrestling champion Ben Askren had a tough time battling pneumonia. His condition was so severe that the doctors had placed him in a medically induced coma, according to Grappling Insider. However, in June, his health improved as he received a double lung transplant — a medical procedure that saved his life.
"This is the beginning of a new lifestyle for Ben, but every new day he has is a gift. It still doesn’t feel real that he was walking around completely healthy just 5 weeks ago. So much can change so quickly. Please keep Ben in your prayers so that his body welcomes the new lungs as if they were his own," Amy Askren, his wife, updated everyone on Facebook in June.
But his road to recovery was anything but easy. It all started when Askren returned from a wrestling match and complained of back pain. "I had this little spot of staph on my elbow, and you know… You don’t need… or, you know, at least in my experience prior to this, you don’t need antibiotics for every staph, right. So you know I showered real well, I cleaned it, I used some… you know antibacterial and that type of stuff, and it went away. It was like on my elbow, and then, you know, a few days later, it cleared up. It looks all healed, but they say it somehow got into my bloodstream," he was quoted by The Mac Life on September 30. Askren kept neglecting the symptoms until his wife literally forced him to go to the doctor. The US Olympic wrestler was then hospitalized for a staph infection that led to necrotizing pneumonia.
"Eventually they realized the only way I was going to stay alive was if I, uh, got a lung transplant. So when I woke up, I had two new lungs," he said. The transplant was, of course, expensive, and his family realized that Askren's insurance wouldn't cover the bills, so they started a fundraising effort. Surprisingly, the campaign received an overwhelming response, garnering support from even his opponents, Jake Paul and Dana White. "Jake Paul and Dana White both donated and were very generous. I don’t expect anything out of them. If they don’t want to, they don’t want to; it’s their money, and they should be able to do what they want with it. And I’m grateful that they felt generous enough, but then also we don’t want to talk about it too much because there were more than a thousand people who made some donations," Askren said in conversation with Ariel Helwani. He added, "We had so many people who were really, really generous. Those guys were both generous; it’s almost funny when it comes from, I don’t know if you call them enemies, just people you haven’t seen eye to eye with. But that brings out the good side in humanity, I think." Moreover, Ben hasn't forgotten his wife's contribution. Praising her in an interview, he said, "My wife was amazing. You know, she visited almost every day for 70 days. It’s like, she’s gotta take care of our kids too. I get emotional still. There’s a decent chance I could’ve died."
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