On a warm September evening in 2003, the set of 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter was buzzing like any other sitcom production. John Ritter, the man who’d spent decades making us laugh as Jack Tripper, was doing what he did best. Then, everything went sideways. He started sweating. He felt nauseous. The kind of chest pain he described wasn't just a "twinge"—it was intense.
He was rushed across the street to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center. Doctors there saw a 54-year-old man with chest pain and immediately thought: heart attack. It’s the logical guess, right? It’s common. But in this case, that guess was a death sentence.
What did John Ritter pass away from?
The short answer is an aortic dissection. But the "why" and "how" are much more complicated—and honestly, pretty terrifying.
An aortic dissection isn't a heart attack. While a heart attack is a blockage in the plumbing, a dissection is a structural failure of the main pipe. The aorta is the body’s superhighway for blood. It’s a thick, three-layered tube. In Ritter’s case, the inner layer tore. Blood began pumping into the wall of the artery instead of through it, peeling the layers apart like cheap plywood in a flood.
When this happens, the aorta can actually burst. Or, it can strip away the blood supply to the brain, kidneys, and the heart itself. Ritter’s doctors treated him for a myocardial infarction (heart attack) and gave him blood thinners. If you have a tear in your main artery, blood thinners are the last thing you want. They basically accelerate the internal bleeding.
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By the time they realized what did john ritter pass away from wasn't a heart attack, he was already on the operating table. It was too late. He died at 10:48 PM, just hours after feeling that first sharp pain.
The Misdiagnosis That Cost a Life
Medicine is often a game of probabilities. Most people clutching their chest in an ER are having heart issues. Because of that, the "standard of care" kicked in for Ritter, but it was for the wrong disease.
A chest X-ray was ordered but never actually performed. That’s one of those "what if" moments that haunts his family. An X-ray might have shown a widened mediastinum—a classic sign that the aorta is bulging or tearing. Instead, the focus stayed on his coronary arteries.
Years later, a massive $67 million wrongful death lawsuit brought all these details to light. His widow, Amy Yasbeck, argued that the doctors were negligent. The jury eventually cleared the radiologist and cardiologist, but the trial revealed a scary reality: aortic dissections are the "great masqueraders." They look like heart attacks, they feel like heart attacks, but the treatment for one can kill a person suffering from the other.
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The Genetic Smoking Gun
Here’s the part that really gets people: it might have been avoidable years before he ever felt pain.
Two years before he died, Ritter had a full-body scan. The radiologist at the time saw some calcification in his heart but didn't think his aorta looked enlarged. Looking back, there’s a lot of debate about whether that was a missed warning sign.
We now know that aortic issues often run in families. John’s father, the legendary "singing cowboy" Tex Ritter, also died of what was called a heart attack. After John died, the family started looking closer. It turns out, there’s a genetic component to how our connective tissue holds our arteries together. If your "glue" is weak, your aorta is a ticking time bomb.
The Legacy: The "Ritter Rules"
Amy Yasbeck didn't just mourn; she went on a warpath to make sure this didn't happen to anyone else. She founded the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health. They came up with something called the Ritter Rules, which are basically a cheat sheet for not dying of a misdiagnosis.
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- Pain is the biggest clue. It’s not usually a dull ache. It’s "tearing" or "ripping" pain that can move from the chest to the back.
- Imaging matters. A standard EKG can look normal (or slightly off) during a dissection. You need a CT, MRI, or a transesophageal echocardiogram to see the tear.
- Family history is a red flag. If your dad or uncle died "suddenly" of a heart attack at a relatively young age, you might actually have a genetic predisposition to aortic disease.
Why This Still Matters in 2026
You’d think with all our tech, we’d be better at catching this. We are, but only if doctors know to look for it. Aortic dissection is still relatively rare—only about 3 to 4 cases per 100,000 people each year—but it’s almost always fatal if missed.
Knowing what did john ritter pass away from changed the protocol in many emergency rooms. Now, if a patient’s EKG doesn’t clearly show a heart attack, but they’re in agony, "rule out dissection" is higher on the list than it was in 2003.
John Ritter’s death was a tragedy of timing and a lack of awareness. He was 54. He was at the top of his game. He went to a world-class hospital. And yet, the system failed him because it was looking for the most likely answer instead of the right one.
If you have a history of heart issues in your family—especially "sudden" deaths—don't just assume it was a heart attack. Talk to a doctor about a screening. It’s a simple scan, and it’s the one thing that might have kept Jack Tripper on our screens for another thirty years.
Actionable Next Steps for Your Health:
If you or a loved one experience sudden, "tearing" chest or back pain, do not just ask if it's a heart attack. Explicitly ask the ER staff: "Could this be an aortic dissection?" and request a CT scan or a TEE if the EKG doesn't provide a definitive answer. Additionally, if you have a family history of aneurysms or sudden cardiac death, schedule a consultation with a genetic counselor to see if you carry markers for thoracic aortic disease.