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Historys Greatest Mysteries - Season 7 - Episode 11: What Killed Bruce Lee?
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00:04tonight the sudden death of an invincible icon he was on the verge of becoming the world's biggest
00:10superstar and the person who would change martial arts for the rest of time he's the closest thing
00:16there is to a real life superhero and then suddenly he's gone is it a freak accident a
00:21medical episode or something more sinister the autopsy shows that his death was due to swelling
00:28of the brain from unknown causes but nobody is satisfied with that answer they've been told
00:33something different from his manager and of course the first thing everyone comes to is a conclusion
00:39that this must be foul play now we explore the top theories surrounding the death of this martial arts
00:46legend bruce was in a place where he shouldn't have been he was at the apartment of his mistress
00:53bruce lee is someone who loves to push boundaries but the chinese mafia is ruthless
00:58and those two things come into conflict as bruce lee's star power grows so does the target on his back
01:07what or who really killed bruce lee
01:26july 20th 1973 10 30 p.m an ambulance speeds through hong kong on its way to queen elizabeth general
01:35hospital but this is no ordinary emergency inside the vehicle is one of the biggest stars of the day
01:43bruce lee bruce lee's already become the biggest martial arts star in fact the biggest movie star
01:51in all of hong kong he's really on the steps of becoming a worldwide phenomenon
01:59his movie enter the dragon is about to be released the first to combine martial arts with spy elements
02:06and expectations are high he had to be at the absolute top of his game for the filming of enter
02:13the
02:13dragon he insisted that the fight scenes be as authentic as possible which meant that essentially
02:20the fighting was real and incredibly physically taxing his next film game of death is an even more
02:28ambitious film bruce lee is not only starring and choreographing the fights in this film but he's also
02:34moving into the director's chair he's bringing new techniques to film he's doing things that are
02:42creative he's doing things that haven't been seen before he's really charting new territory no matter
02:49the movie bruce lee is this larger than life character he seems completely indestructible and
02:55here he is on this day lying in an ambulance without a pulse upon arrival they initiate resuscitation
03:03procedures they're injecting chemicals into his heart they're using defibrillator pads to try to
03:08bring him back but nothing's working bruce's wife linda she arrives at the hospital to see them doing
03:17resuscitation on bruce they're trying desperately to restart his heart no matter what they do he remains
03:24flatlined it's just after 11 30 p.m when the news leaks hong kong's favorite son bruce lee is dead
03:34at
03:34the age of 32. there is no official announcement although journalists have a sense that something
03:41is up so they started to gather and they're demanding answers so his business partner raymond chow puts
03:48together a brief statement he says that bruce lee was out walking in his garden with his wife when he
03:54suddenly collapsed and was rushed to the hospital but lee's fans find this story hard to believe
04:02around 15 000 of his devastated fans take to the street and it's utter pandemonium police are forced
04:09to restrain the crowd everyone's asking how a man so fit and powerful could die so suddenly the hospital
04:19states that bruce lee died from cerebral edema which is swelling of the brain in which the pressure becomes
04:25too great and then physical functions begin to shut down when the brain fills up with too much fluid
04:31what will happen is it will first start to expand and then it gets stuck against the skull which is
04:36very firm if you have this situation where the brain is starting to crush downwards onto the brain stem
04:44that's the part that controls all of your bodily functions like your heartbeat your breathing and if it
04:50is caught in time there are things you can do to reverse it but if it's not caught in time
04:55it is lethal
04:57the initial autopsy suggests that his brain swelled past the capacity of his body it was actually 13
05:05larger than what a normal brain is supposed to be which is incredibly dangerous swelling of the brain
05:11is known as the cause for bruce lee's death but the real question is what caused that swelling of the
05:18brain
05:20with doctors unable to explain what triggered lee's lethal condition speculation abounds until the next
05:27morning hong kong's leading newspaper the morning post runs a front page headline and the article states
05:34that bruce lee had been ill for two months prior to his death in that article raymond chow reveals that
05:42two months earlier in may bruce lee suffered a seizure caused by cerebral edema the same thing that would
05:50cause his death two months later chow goes on to say that prior to his seizure bruce lee had suffered
05:56several hard blows to the head while filming enter the dragon these blows could have been far more severe
06:03and dangerous than anyone at the time might have known during the filming of enter the dragon bruce lee is
06:17going full throttle he is pushing himself to whole new levels his training has been ramped up he is insisting
06:26that every fighting scene has to be absolutely authentic he does report having headaches but he just
06:32powers through july 20th was not the first time that bruce had collapsed in fact in remarkably similar
06:41conditions he had collapsed on may 10th at that time he had been finished with the filming of enter the
06:49dragon and he began to feel dizzy to complain about feeling nauseous he goes to the bathroom where he
06:58collapses bruce lee suffers a seizure is rushed to the hospital and on that occasion doctors managed to
07:06reduce the swelling but one doctor reports that if he had not been brought there immediately he surely
07:13would have died doctors can't specify what caused lee's brain to swell but many people believe his years
07:22of intense combat are to blame one of the reasons bruce lee is so remarkable is because he really pushed
07:30himself to the limit psychologically physiologically he was so good at demonstrating the outer limits of
07:40what the human body was capable of it's also well known that he's willing to fight against anyone that's
07:46willing to face off against him and that includes strikes to the head which are a crucial part of kung
07:52fu
07:54with repeated cerebral trauma over time this can build and if it doesn't get time to repair itself
08:00because you're working as hard as he was every day to do over the top things he might end up
08:06with
08:06permanent damage and it could very easily lead to swelling of the brain or cerebral edema
08:13most of the time lee would train with protective headgear which would dampen the blows but we know
08:18of at least one time in his earlier years when he was training without any protection at all
08:25it's a fight that would define his career but may have also shortened his life in 1964 bruce lee's
08:34a 23 year old in oakland he's co-running a kung fu studio there and developing his chops as a
08:41teacher
08:41but also figuring out his style as a martial artist and word gets out about him he has this bravado
08:48a bit of arrogance he has an ego so people start to learn about him and not everyone is a
08:53fan he had
08:54given a demonstration in san francisco's chinatown where he had lost his temper when he was challenged
09:01by other martial artists and he had declared that he was the best martial artist and challenged anyone
09:08to prove him wrong one of the well-known martial artists at the time named wong jack man decides to
09:17take him up on the challenge so he goes to lee's place in oakland to have a fight just to
09:24see who
09:25really is the best martial artist adding fuel to the fire in addition to lee's arrogance wong is also
09:32incensed that bruce lee is revealing the secrets of kung fu to westerners which he considers to be
09:38deeply disrespectful of their heritage the two men meet up at bruce lee's studio and it's an extremely
09:48intense fight from the very beginning neither one clearly gets the advantage but at one point when it
09:56looks like wong jack man is retreating under a series of blows from lee he suddenly fires off a
10:03series of windmill kicks to bruce lee's head he ends up taking the full force of this kick even though
10:12it ended up being sort of unclear who really won that fight there was no question that at least with
10:17that sort of vicious spin kick bruce lee was injured with no protective gear
10:23this could have been the first of many brain injuries that would ultimately lead to lee's death
10:29nine years later but not everyone's convinced skeptics do say that while lee wasn't wearing
10:36protective headgear during this sparring session with wong he constantly did wear protective headgear
10:42during his training sessions the reason many believe that bruce lee didn't have a traumatic brain injury
10:48is because he wasn't experiencing forgetfulness he didn't have lapses in his memory he wasn't acting
10:54erratically so clearly he was competent and capable and able to deal with these really intense situations
11:01people are also having a hard time believing the story of lee just suddenly collapsing during
11:07a nighttime stroll in his garden with his wife especially since he was rushed to a hospital that's
11:12pretty far from his residence the story that bruce had collapsed while taking a walk falls apart and
11:20it opened up the floodgates to people wanting to know the truth
11:27july 22nd 1973 it's been two days since bruce lee's shocking death and a local journalist has grown
11:37suspicious of the official story and begins calling his sources at the hospital to dig up more
11:43information at that time every hong kong hospital kept an ambulance record of where a patient was
11:49picked up from and so he tracked down the ambulance log and found out that the address that bruce lee's
11:55body had been picked up from wasn't the same as his home address he is shocked to notice that the
12:01ambulance
12:01was actually dispatched to 67 beacon hill road 67 beacon hill road was where betty ting pay lived
12:10betty ting pay is a beautiful young taiwanese actress who's been making a name for herself in chinese
12:17cinema she first meets bruce lee in 1972 while he's filming way of the dragon and while he is married
12:24at
12:24the time the two become close and rumors start circulating about an affair between them those
12:31rumors become even louder when news circulates that betty will be cast as a lead role in bruce lee's
12:37upcoming film game of death when people find out the truth about where bruce lee was when he died
12:44they're pretty mad and they're also completely suspicious of the entire situation if raymond chow
12:51has concocted this other story what else is he leaving out their willingness to lie about the
12:57circumstances under which bruce died only opened up speculation about what they might be lying about
13:04regarding the cause of his death the press picks up the story and betty ting pay comes under all kinds
13:11of scrutiny now at first she says i wasn't even home that night that immediately gets shot down her
13:17neighbors mention having seen her moreover her neighbors mention that bruce lee has been a regular
13:23visitor to her place for months now soon more information is revealed casting bruce lee's final
13:33hours in a more troubling light after a few days the findings of the autopsy confirm that the cause of
13:40death was this cerebral edema but there's a new piece of information it says that the cause of that
13:45edema could have been some kind of drug intoxication the coroner found two foreign substances in bruce's
13:59stomach one was hashish and the other was this pill called equagesic which was a kind of common pain
14:06reliever mostly prescribed to women for menstrual cramps it had aspirin and nephrabamate which was a
14:13kind of muscle relaxant authorities need to figure out if these substances alone or in combination
14:21contributed to bruce lee's death in an effort to determine the cause of bruce lee's death the hong
14:27kong courts launch a formal investigation the coroner's inquest takes place over several days where
14:34witnesses are called and evidence brought forward betty ting pay testified linda lee testified raymond chow
14:41testified all the experts and all the doctors involved with bruce lee's death were brought in to be
14:47interviewed by the various lawyers it's a media circus bruce lee's fans are out in force they're
14:54pushing up against the barricades more than anything else they want to try to catch a glimpse of betty ting
15:00pay in her testimony betty finally admits that she was there the evening that bruce died they had been
15:08there at the apartment with raymond chow earlier discussing plans for game of death and afterwards
15:14when raymond left bruce was complaining of a headache so she gave him an equagesic and then he went to
15:20lay
15:20down and take a nap betty admits that he then ate a couple of hash brownies and then she came
15:27to wake him
15:27up to go for their dinner plan but he's non-responsive initially during the inquest investigators are
15:35focused on the hash found in lee's stomach at that time hash is thought by the hong kong government to
15:41be a particularly dangerous drug and people speculate about whether or not lee had an allergic reaction to
15:47it the deadly hash theory however is quickly put to rest when medical experts testify that there has
15:54never been a substantiated case of death caused by cannabis the focus of the inquest then turns to that
16:02painkiller lee took not long before his death dr robert donald tier a british pathologist looks into
16:10this case and says that he believes the death could be caused by a reaction to something in the equagesic
16:17either to the aspirin or to the meprobamate or to some combination of the two aspirin can cause
16:24anaphylactic shock which can result in cerebral edema in people who die from it and so professor
16:30tier decided that the most likely explanation was that bruce lee had a hyperallergic reaction and
16:36that's what caused bruce lee's cerebral edema which caused his death five days after bruce lee dies on
16:44july 25th 1973 an open casket funeral is held a photo taken inside the funeral parlor raises new concerns
16:54a news photographer captures an image of bruce lee in his casket and it shows that his face is horribly
17:03bloated people are so mistrusting at this point of everything that has been said about bruce's death
17:10that when they see this photograph and he looks different than he did in life it calls into question
17:17a lot of other things why does he look this way could there possibly be foul play
17:25on september 24th 1973 after seven tense days the jury comes back with their verdict death by
17:35misadventure death by misadventure is a confusing way to say that he essentially died by accident
17:42many of lee's fans just don't accept the death by misadventure verdict they refuse to accept that
17:48their hero could have died from a painkiller that contains aspirin and a probamate attention turns back
17:55to lee's mistress the last person to see him alive and people start to believe that she might know more
18:01about his final hours than she initially revealed as rumors continue to swirl around lee's cause of death
18:11the spotlight turns on the woman bruce lee was with on the night he died lee's mistress betty tingpe
18:20the press is fascinated by the relationship between bruce lee and betty tingpe when they meet on the set of
18:28way of the dragon in 1972 they quickly become romantically linked he certainly wasn't trying to
18:34be discreet about their relationship people observed them out in public together and that led a lot of
18:41people to believe that he was having an extramarital affair bruce lee's connection with betty tingpe
18:48is definitely scandalous because he's married to linda lee and he has two small children of course that puts
18:56linda in a very uncomfortable position in december 1972 bruce lee supposedly tries to cut off ties with
19:05betty she's so distraught that she swallows a handful of sleeping pills and is rushed to queen elizabeth
19:11hospital betty recovers but from that point on her relationship with bruce becomes increasingly
19:17strained she is upset that he won't leave his wife she is reportedly consumed by jealousy and maybe
19:25she thinks if she can't have him nobody else can either so there are some theories that start to
19:39circulate that perhaps someone has purposely killed him and of course the obvious person becomes betty tingpe
19:48she's the other woman she's taking him away from his family and his wife so they start to run with
19:53this
19:53theory that perhaps she was the jealous lover and that potentially she might have poisoned him
20:00and they say there's reason to believe she tried it before there are rumors that betty has been laying
20:08the groundwork for this for months there's no actual proof of this there's no sign of anything toxic in
20:15bruce's bloodstream but people still believe that she may have used some substance that wouldn't have
20:20shown up on a toxicology report because she comes from a family of doctors the other strange thing is
20:26the timeline of all this when she realizes that he's unconscious he's unresponsive why doesn't she
20:32call emergency services instead she calls raymond chow by calling the manager instead of immediately
20:41calling an ambulance she's losing precious time he needs immediate medical attention
20:49even though she repeatedly denies any wrongdoing the news media continues to publish story after
20:55story implicating her the public response to this is highly negative students in malaysia are marching
21:03around with signs saying betty killed bruce in august 1973 hong kong police receive a bomb threat
21:11they go to investigate but they don't find a bomb they find a suspicious package
21:17inside the note saying betty knows the cause of bruce's death there's no evidence of foul play
21:24but that doesn't prevent the greater public from continuing to find different stories that they
21:31want to believe in in terms of bruce lee's demise and so this hastens the speculation that someone is
21:37involved in some kind of conspiracy to kill bruce lee the most obvious person would have been betty ting pay
21:46there's also speculation that betty might not have acted alone going back to those chaotic hours
21:53following bruce lee's death one has to wonder why his business partner and confidant raymond chow
21:59put out a statement about where he died that was so easily disproven part of the story that raymond
22:07leaves out when he creates that false narrative is the fact that he was also there when bruce was at
22:12betty's apartment after bruce lee first stops breathing betty summons raymond chow to her apartment
22:20when he gets there raymond chow inexplicably tells betty not to call an ambulance he tells her to call
22:26instead her personal physician raymond had seen bruce suffer a similar episode just two months prior
22:32so he knew he would have to get medical treatment right away in order to reverse the condition so it's
22:38very strange that he would wait so long to get urgent care for him it's not until 10 30 at
22:45night that
22:45the ambulance arrives to take him away by that time it's already too late for many the question remains
22:53was the delay a willful decision around the time of his death bruce lee's relationship with business
23:00partner raymond chow reportedly started to fracture when they formed their production company concord
23:06productions in 1972 they initially had a 50 50 split between the two of them but by summer of 1973
23:14bruce lee
23:15is working on an independent film and he is reportedly threatening to walk away from chow altogether
23:21given the level of money that bruce lee is generating at the box office with bruce lee out of the
23:29picture
23:29raymond chow has a lot to gain if you add together raymond chow's financial interests and bruce lee's
23:37work and the fact that they might be disagreeing on the future of how they collaborate this starts to
23:42look really fishy like was this intentional betty and raymond chow are both cleared but people still
23:49believe in a murder conspiracy this time with just a different set of suspects
23:56a month after bruce lee's death his final film enter the dragon premieres in los angeles
24:03to rave reviews lee plays a spy set on taking down the narcotics kingpin who killed his sister the story
24:10may be fictional but fans are left wondering if like his character lee became entangled with powerful gang
24:18members and has paid with his life attention turns to a dark encounter from his early days
24:25although bruce was born in san francisco hong kong really is the place where bruce
24:31grows up he enters the movie industry because his father is a cantonese opera performer
24:38so by the time he's 18 years old bruce has appeared in films not as a star but certainly as
24:46a known actor
24:48as bruce is getting older in hong kong he's actually getting into a lot of trouble
24:52and sometimes he's mixing with the wrong people bruce lee was a little street fighter and he ran across
24:59a kid named william chung who was better than him so he asked william chung how are you this good
25:04and
25:05william chung said i studied under the master ipman ipman is a master of a particular style of kung fu
25:13called wing chun wing chun emphasizes close quarters fighting involving a blitz of lightning fast kicks and
25:21fast punches ideal for street fighting it man was impressed by how intense bruce's obsession with the
25:28martial arts was and so he would say to bruce don't believe me try it out yourself if you don't
25:34think i'm
25:34telling you the truth go out the streets and test what i've taught you so lee organizes a group of
25:40his
25:40friends into a gang that calls itself the junction street eight tigers on one of these outings bruce lee
25:50picks a fight with the wrong guy he roughs up this teenager pretty badly and it turns out that the
25:56guy's parents have connections to the chinese mob the triad the triad came from all over mainland china
26:04when the communist revolution of the late 1940s takes place and a lot of them end up in hong kong
26:11where they're taking over just about every avenue that organized crime might control
26:16the triads are very astute they know how to adapt with the market and in hong kong one of the
26:22major
26:22industries is the film industry so they want to have a piece of the action too they're putting up
26:27the money for films and controlling production and they of course target actors that they think have
26:33crossed them which is lee's first of several reported run-ins with the chinese mafia like most
26:41mobsters the triad makes its money from extortion and kickbacks and as bruce lee's star power grows
26:47so does the target on his back
26:58bruce's life was actually in danger because he had harmed the son of a triad member his father becomes
27:06really worried about his safety that the mob would try and retaliate so he sends bruce to go live with
27:12relatives in seattle but many people believe that the threat from the triad doesn't actually go away
27:18when bruce is living in seattle the triad is operating in america but they're kind of operating
27:24underground so when he decides he's going to open a martial arts school in seattle the triads pay him a
27:29visit demanding money to allow him to open a school in their turf he was not off anybody's radar
27:37but bruce wasn't the type to do as he was told in 1964 lee has dropped out of college and
27:44has married
27:44his longtime sweetheart linda and a year later their son brandon is born a couple years after that his
27:51career really takes off when he gets cast in the role of cato the sidekick in the abc series the
27:58green
27:59hornet in 1971 bruce lee returns to hong kong and once again reportedly crosses paths with the triad
28:08he's just released the film the big boss which makes him a huge star back in hong kong he gets
28:15a visit from a stranger who's offering him 200 000 hong kong dollars and when he asks what it's for
28:22he says just a gift now this is right out of the triad playbook of giving money chakuri favor and
28:28hold
28:29some leverage over you lee angrily rebuffs him but he knows what this means the triad likes to control
28:38people by giving them cash and it's dangerous to turn down an offer of cash from the triad
28:45so from that point on lee starts wearing a knife carrying a gun with him thinking that he can come
28:52under attack at any time just days before his death lee gets into an altercation with a triad linked
29:00director low way had been the director of bruce lee's first two movies that had become such a huge
29:06success and they ended up fighting over who got to take credit for the success
29:11one day bruce lee heard that low way was in the screening room and he went down to give low
29:16way a
29:16piece of his mind he gets in his face they start a shouting match and soon afterward lee pulls a
29:23knife
29:23on him and aims it right at his chest and lee has to be dragged out of the room to
29:28keep this from turning
29:28violent but the chinese director is rumored to have connections that lee may not be taking into account
29:37when lee threatens low like that this is a direct affront to the triad who are assumed to be connected
29:44to him maybe the triads wanted bruce lee dead and his altercation with low way in the screening room
29:52was kind of the last straw hong kong police understand the danger of the triad so they look
29:59into this aspect of lee's death but they have no active leads there are no outward signs of a physical
30:06attack so the potential connection to the triad goes cold
30:13in the weeks after bruce lee's death rumors abound but there's still no clear new lead
30:19that challenges the idea that he died accidentally then in 1974 one year after lee's death a new theory
30:27emerges with a plot straight out of a kung fu film there's a journalist who's investigating bruce lee's
30:35death and he starts developing this theory of that bruce lee could have been assassinated by
30:40a cabal of kung fu masters using a technique known as dimmach dimmach is this idea that you can hit
30:49somebody on their acupuncture lines or pushing a kind of chi power and after you touch them you can
30:56control when they die so it's a delayed death touch it's rumored that some martial arts masters have
31:05this ability to strike at just the right pressure point to bring about death if not immediately days weeks
31:13or even months later bruce certainly was at odds with many of the martial arts practitioners of hong
31:28kong some people think it's because he had taught what was supposed to be a chinese secret art to
31:34westerners bruce lee is this arrogant burgeoning international film star and he really doesn't
31:41jibe with this old school mentality bruce had created his own form of martial arts he called it
31:48jee kune do or the way of the intercepting fist and it incorporated elements from a lot of different
31:53martial arts styles combining his street fighting with fencing and boxing what he was after was trying
32:00to become a more efficient fighter and finding moves that were practical versus theoretical that didn't
32:08actually have any power in them so the journalist theorizes that in order to stop him from continuing
32:15to change these ancient traditions the group of kung fu masters sends out an assassin to kill bruce lee
32:21with the death touch dimmock like everything in kung fu is linked back to the shaolin temple the
32:29location of where kung fu originated and there are various theories that link to the shaolin monks the idea
32:37that they could use special acupuncture and acupressure points to affect the human body they say
32:44that bruce might have died from a touch on his pressure point that blocked his energy and led to his
32:49death days or weeks later while this is speculative certain types of punches and kicks are known to be
32:58lethal a blow to the chest delivered just right at a certain point in the cardiac process can cause an
33:06immediate cardiac arrest but it's exceptionally rare for a blow to cause a delayed death while this theory
33:15is intriguing to many there's no real evidence that supports it and it's pretty much relegated to martial
33:22arts mythology the death of bruce lee remains shrouded in mystery for the next 45 years
33:31then in 2018 a new theory emerges matthew polly writes a biography of bruce lee and he posits a new
33:40theory
33:40around his death because he looks very closely at the two instances of cerebral edema polly postulates
33:47that he could have died from an inability to regulate his own body temperature he examines the may 10th
33:53collapse when lee was rushed to the hospital with a cerebral edema and was able to be revived
34:00on may 10th he was redubbing lines in a room that was super hot because they turned off the air
34:06conditioning to make sure that it didn't interfere with the sound during that process he started to
34:12feel dizzy and faint and he ended up collapsing and going into seizures they rushed him to the hospital
34:17and the doctors diagnosed him with cerebral edema and they gave him mannitol to cause the swelling to go
34:23down the doctors do note that bruce was covered in sweat and he had a high fever and according to
34:31polly
34:31those are classic symptoms of heat stroke and perhaps this went undiagnosed
34:42if it is heat stroke why is it happening to bruce lee one of the fittest men alive he had
34:50complained
34:51many times about how sweaty his armpits were this affected his work because on screen they kept having
34:57to switch his shirts out six months prior to his initial collapse he had cosmetic surgery removing
35:04the sweat glands from underneath his armpits at that time people were offering that it has since been
35:09discontinued because it's considered extremely dangerous because it affects your ability to process heat
35:15and so having those removed would have made him more susceptible to heat stroke on july 20th 1973
35:22that's the hottest day of the month in hong kong he is in betty ting pei's apartment running over lines
35:29what happens there is eerily similar to what happened back in may he starts complaining about
35:35headaches and feeling faint he falls into betty's bed and he never wakes up he collapses in a situation
35:43in which he's in a sauna like room and then 10 weeks after that he dies on a very hot
35:48day to me that
35:50suggests that he potentially died from heat stroke but sweat is produced all over the body and the
35:57attending doctors back in may reported that he has sweat pouring out of him all over so you'd think
36:04that would regulate body temperature despite those minor flaws in the logic it still does provide a
36:11plausible theory as to the cause of bruce lee's death
36:1750 years after bruce lee's death researchers are still looking for clues to explain what killed him
36:24in 2022 a group of spanish kidney specialists come out with a novel theory for what happened to bruce lee
36:34their theory was that he was suffering from retaining an excess of fluid which can lead to swelling of the
36:41brain it's a little ironic because bruce lee's famous quote was be water my friend kind of speaking
36:48to the fluidity of the body during martial arts but it turns out that it might have been too much
36:53water
36:53that could have killed him
37:03the scientists also go back and look at the autopsy results and one of the things that strikes them is
37:09the fact that his brain had swollen to the point where it was 3.5 pounds which is a half
37:15pound heavier
37:16than the average human brain and what caused the swelling was water the kidneys actually are filters
37:23for the body and also regulate water if you get enough of a buildup of toxins the kidneys can actually
37:31not
37:31function properly on may 10th when he collapsed for the first time and was examined by the doctor
37:38there were some unexplained high levels of waste in his kidneys and so that also signals that he had
37:45kidney disease the levels were so high that the doctors actually thought it was a typo
37:52at the time doctors were more worried about lee's brain than his kidneys the researchers from spain believe
38:00that may have been a grave mistake if the kidneys aren't working then they can't get rid of excess water
38:06in
38:06the body and if there's a buildup of water that creates a somewhat catastrophic situation
38:13the water dilutes the sodium in the human body and it creates a situation called hyponatremia
38:20and if it is not immediately addressed it leads to death
38:27but why is bruce consuming so much water on july 20th the day of his death earlier in the day
38:35even before he goes to betty's apartment he has consumed some hashish brownies in fact he writes
38:42to a friend that day that he's stoned as hell it would make sense if lee's water intake were high
38:50that
38:50day we already know that he was eating a hash brownie so that would cause some thirst and he
38:56would be drinking more water he was also running lines for his upcoming film so the physical exertion
39:01and the exercise would have caused him to drink more water as well he's a martial artist he's getting
39:08body blows all the time so it's also possible that he might have actually sustained some physical
39:14trauma to some areas of the kidneys such that maybe they're not working at top capacity one of the
39:19things of note is that he had very low sodium which is something that happens when you've had too much
39:26water
39:28during this period he certainly had been on a very extreme diet of only eating or drinking apple and
39:37carrot juice so he may not have been taking in the nutrients that he needed to maintain healthy levels
39:43of sodium when you're over hydrated you allow a shift of fluids such that you can get a fluid build
39:51up
39:51in a place that normally wouldn't have one like the brain but water is also what makes up 60 or
39:57more of
39:57our bodies it's the giver of life ironically in his situation taking in too much water can result in something
40:05fatal no matter how bruce lee died his mystique and the mystery of his final hours lives on it makes
40:15a lot of sense that there would be so many theories surrounding the death of bruce lee ranging from the
40:20mundane to the mythological bruce lee's death really ties into who he was as a mega star because he was
40:28able
40:28to kind of elevate the kung fu hero to international status and in dying he became the athlete who dies
40:35young he died in his perfect form in perfect shape so that we could project our own hopes and dreams
40:42and
40:42mysteries onto him with a figure like bruce who was larger than life it makes so much sense that people
40:51would want a dramatic answer as to how his life could have ended
40:59some believe that regardless of how bruce lee died he was destined to live a short life in a tragic
41:06twist
41:07of fate that some define as a curse males in bruce's family have died young bruce's older brother died as
41:15a
41:15toddler and bruce's son brandon lee was shot by accident on a movie set in 1993 tragedies that have helped
41:24the
41:24legend of bruce lee live on i'm lawrence fishburne thank you for watching history's greatest mysteries
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