Man With ALS Given Tickets to Super Bowl Dies on the Way to Game

The sun sets behind Mercedes-Benz Stadium ahead of Sunday's NFL Super Bowl 53 football game between the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots in Atlanta, on Jan. 30, 2019. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A man with Lou Gehrig’s disease was given tickets to the Super Bowl, but he died in an accident on the way to the game.

Ed Cushman, who was living with the disease also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), had been given tickets to watch the Los Angeles Rams-New England Patriots game.

But he was killed when the minivan he was traveling in with his brother caught on fire on the side of a Georgia highway, foundation officials told The Advocate.

“While we are devastated, we are happy he is no longer suffering from the pain of ALS,” Robert Cushman, his brother, said on social media.

When the two were driving south on Interstate 85 in Franklin County, Robert’s minivan began smoking from underneath, said State Patrol officials.

He stopped on the side of the road and got out, but the car caught on fire.

He was unable to pull Ed Cushman, who was confined to a wheelchair and using a ventilator, out of the car. Robert had to retreat away from the vehicle as the fire got too intense, officials said.

“Please be in prayer for our family,” Cushman’s brother also wrote on Facebook.

“We lost my brother, Edward Craig Cushman, in a freak accident while we were driving to Atlanta yesterday. While we are devastated, we are happy he is no longer suffering from the pain of ALS.”

The Georgia State Patrol told WWLTV: “The vehicle started smoking underneath so the driver pulled to the shoulder of the roadway to examine the source. He exited the vehicle and then smoke began pouring out of the vehicle. He stated that at that point flames started erupting out of each side and he tried to extract his passenger, but was unable to and had to leave because the flames were too intense.”

“Words cannot express how shocked we are for Ed and his entire family,“ the Gleason Foundation wrote in a statement about his death. ”We remain committed to our ALS community and Ed’s family in this time of incredible sadness.”

“Like so many with ALS, Ed was passionate about living, and he dreamed of going to the Super Bowl,” the foundation’s statement added. “We were honored to have played a small role in helping make that possible for such an amazing man.”

Other details about his death are not clear.

According to the ALS Foundation, ALS “is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.”

“Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their demise. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, people may lose the ability to speak, eat, move and breathe,” the foundation’s website says.