MAY 4, 2015
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO (AP)
SurveyMonkey CEO David Goldberg died of severe head trauma
in an exercise accident in the Mexican resort town of Punta Mita, a Mexican
state official said Monday.
Goldberg, husband of Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg, was
found lying next to a treadmill on Friday at a resort in Punta Mita near Puerto
Vallarta on Mexico's Pacific coast.
The official said he left his room at about 4 p.m. to
exercise, and family members went to look for him after he didn't return. He
was found at about 6:30 p.m. in a gymnasium lying by a treadmill in a pool of
blood, with a blow to the lower back of his head. He apparently had slipped on
the treadmill and hit the machine, said the official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the press.
The official said Goldberg still had vital signs when he was
discovered, but later died at a hospital in Nuevo Vallarta. The official said
the cause of death was severe head trauma and hypovolemic shock, or bleeding.
The official said the accident took place at the Four
Seasons Resort Punta Mita and that the family had checked in on April 30.
But the Four Seasons issued a statement saying the incident
did not happen on any of its properties and that David Goldberg was not
registered as a guest in any of the rooms, villas or residences.
Serious injuries involving exercise equipment, treadmills in
particular, are among the most common that emergency rooms see, according to
data collected by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Hospital emergency departments across the USA treated some
24,400 treadmill related injuries last year, said CPSC spokeswoman Kim Dulic.
The agency counted 30 reported deaths associated with
treadmills from 2003 to 2012.
Almost 460,000 people were sent to the hospital in 2012 for
injuries related to exercise equipment, according to the agency's data. The
vast majority—nearly 428,000 were treated and released for their injuries—but
about 32,000 were hospitalized or were dead on arrival.
Treadmill injuries included broken bones, abrasions, rectal
bleeding and people developing chest pain while working out on the machines,
according to a review of the CPSC data base system.
The death of SurveyMonkey CEO David Goldberg, who
authorities says suffered severe head trauma after slipping from a treadmill,
comes nearly six years after the 4-year-old daughter of former heavyweight
boxing champ Mike Tyson died in a treadmill accident at her home in Phoenix
Ariz.
She had been strangled by a cord connected to the machine.