The sudden death of JetBlue pilot Brian Waitzel left his family grappling for answers after what seemed like a normal day turned tragic. The 47-year-old, known for his good health, unexpectedly collapsed and died just hours after enjoying a backyard barbecue burger.

Brian’s untimely death followed severe stomach pains, with an autopsy ultimately unable to determine a definitive cause, labeling it as a ‘sudden unexplained death’ in September 2024. For over a year, his family lived with uncertainty, unable to comprehend how a simple meal could lead to such a devastating outcome.

Recently, a breakthrough came when a team of physicians and allergists published a study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. They revealed that Brian’s death was linked to alpha-gal syndrome, a rare and deadly allergy to red meat caused by a tick bite.

Pieper Waitzel, Brian’s wife, shared her heartache with the New York Times, saying, “Everything changed in our life in ten minutes, and to not know why was so upsetting.”

With the cause of his death finally uncovered, the Waitzel family can begin to find some semblance of closure, although the reality of losing Brian remains a painful chapter in their lives.

The disease is transmitted by tick bites and triggers a sudden, severe, allergy to red meat. 

Brian ate the hamburger at a barbecue in Wall Township, New Jersey, about 3pm and went home to mow the lawn at his $1.7 million home. When Pieper left the house at 7pm, her husband still had no symptoms.

Just 20 minutes later when he fell violently ill, according to the medical journal’s findings, with Brian’s teenage son calling his mom to tell her ‘dad is getting sick again.’ He was then found unconscious in the bathroom. 

Brian Waitzel, 47, died after experiencing sudden and severe abdominal pain and vomiting, which medical professionals later deemed was from alpha-gal syndrome  

Brian’s wife, Pieper, told the New York Times her husband’s death left them wanting answers 

Brian’s sudden and severe symptoms came just hours after he mowed the lawn and attended a barbecue  

Their son, who just received CPR training for his job as a lifeguard, attempted to resuscitate his dad until paramedics arrived. 

Emergency responders continued life-saving efforts for two hours, but he was declared dead at 10.22pm, according to the medical journal’s report. 

Waitzel’s death shocked and baffled his family, as he was in good health and received regular check-ups for his job as a pilot. 

A family friend, Dr Erin McFeely, told the New York Times that something about Waitzel’s death ‘just didn’t add up.’ 

McFeely and Waitzel’s wife then connected that every time he became severely ill, he had eaten red meat earlier in the day. 

Two weeks before Waitzel’s death, he was on a camping trip with his wife and ate a beef steak.

He woke up in the middle of the night with intense abdominal pain, diarrhea, and vomiting. 

Pieper told the New York Times that the episode was jarring. ‘It was raining, and he was rolling around on the tent platform in such pain, he couldn’t even tell me what was happening,’ she recalled. 

Brian’s teenage son found him unconscious in the bathroom and performed CPR until paramedics arrived 

Brian’s wife told the New York Times that her husband wasn’t experiencing symptoms when she left the house before his death 

She tried to ask her husband if his head or his heart hurt, but he was in too much pain to answer. 

All Pieper could do was sit next to him in tears and try to clean him up until the pain subsided. 

Brian told one of his sons, ‘I thought I was going to die,’ according to the medical journal. 

However, the next morning, the pilot was feeling better and even went on a five-mile hike. The couple figured he had food poisoning and didn’t make a doctor’s appointment because the symptoms subsided. 

‘He bounced out of bed at 7am like nothing ever happened,’ 

Pieper then recalled that earlier in the year, her husband had gone jogging and returned with small bites around his ankles. 

Brian is the first confirmed fatality of alpha-gal syndrome. His death has motivated researchers to spread awareness about the rare condition 

She told researchers that the bites were from ‘chiggers,’ which often refer to Lone Star ticks in the eastern US. 

Chiggers aren’t generally recognized as ticks, but they are an important cause of alpha-gal.  

The syndrome is still relatively unknown, but researchers have found that it’s most commonly associated with a bite from a Lone Star tick. 

Eerily, Brian and his wife had discussed alpha-gal previously after Pieper read an article about tick bites causing deadly red meat allergies.

‘I said to my husband “You should read this,”‘ she told the Times. But the couple dismissed the illness as low risk, given their home sat inland from Jersey Shore beach towns where tick bites are more common. 

Brian is the first confirmed fatality from alpha-gal, but researchers have warned that many people are likely unaware that they have the syndrome. 

The research team that published the findings noted that more people will be exposed to the Lone Star tick as deer populations increase across multiple states. 

Researchers urged better education on alpha-gal and noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention documented a large number of physicians unaware of the syndrome.