For those questioning the cause of two-time NASCAR Cup Series champ Kyle Busch’s death, former UFC contender Ben Askren says he nearly died from the same thing.
The world of motorsports was rocked when it was announced that the 41 year old Busch had died on May 21, 2026, just days before he was supposed to compete at the Coca-Cola 600 Cup Series. There was further confusion after his family released a statement on what killed him.
“The medical evaluation provided to the Busch Family concluded that
severe pneumonia progressed into sepsis, resulting in rapid and overwhelming associated complications,” the statement read. “The Family asks for continued understanding and privacy during this difficult time.”
Many couldn’t understand how pneumonia could progress so quickly and kill a healthy man like Busch. This is where former Bellator and ONE welterweight champion Ben Askren has some insight. A bad case of pneumonia almost killed Askren in June 2025, resulting in the MMA fighter receiving a double-lung transplant.
“This is literally what happened to me,” Askren wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I had zero breathing issues until the morning I was admitted to the hospital. Only symptoms days before was back pain. I went to the hospital the day before I was admitted and all vitals tested normal, besides back pain I felt fine and even had a good workout.”
“Honestly sounds eerily similar,” he wrote. “Thank god my wife forced me to go tot he hospital when she did or my fate would’ve likely been similar. It’s scary stuff … I had zero cough. Fever and fatigue showed up only hours before I was admitted to the hospital.”
Askren quickly went from feeling a bit off to being put into a medically induced coma for 45 days. He nearly died several times in the hospital, and his recovery has been pretty miraculous considering how bad things were looking.
Doctors pointed towards a staph infection as the vector that made Askren’s pneumonia so deadly. The Busch family noted sepsis was involved, and staph can lead to sepsis. Without making any assumptions about Busch’s case, you can see how these situations look somewhat similar. And if it can nearly kill a healthy lifetime athlete like Askren, we can see how this tragedy with Kyle Busch was possible.
