Billy Mays Cause of Death Likely Heart Disease

During a press conference this morning, Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams announced that pitchman Billy Mays died from a pulmonary embolism (a blockage of an artery that runs from the heart to the lungs, often by a blood clot), most likely as a result of heart disease.

The jovial, booming-voiced Mays "had an enlarged heart, a thickening of the wall of the ventricle which takes blood to the heart," reportered the Tampa, FL coroner.

Final autopsy results and an official cause of death will not be known for several weeks.  The initial findings however, seem to rule out head trauma as a cause of death.  Mays was a passenger on a U.S. Airways flight on Saturday that experienced a rough landing when its front tires blew out.  During an interview, Mays had told a local news outlet that he had been hit in the head during the incident, but was fine. [People]