Patrick Quinn passed away on Sunday, November 22 at the age of 37 years due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). He was diagnosed with the disease seven years ago and to raise awareness for the same, he co-created the famous Ice Bucket Challenge.
ALS is a motor neurone disease which affects the brain’s nerve cells and spinal cord which eventually leads to loss of muscle control. It was also named Lou Gehrig's disease after the baseball player who was diagnosed with it.
As per his Facebook, Patrick who was born in New York raised almost $220 million for the cause.
The ALS Association tweeted about Quinn’s death in a series of tweets by saying, “We are deeply saddened to share that Pat Quinn, co-founder of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge passed away at the age of 37. Pat was diagnosed with ALS in 2013 and went on to help popularize the greatest social media campaign in history.”
The second tweet said, “The Ice Bucket challenge dramatically accelerated the fight against ALS, leading to new research discoveries, expansion of care for people with ALS, and greater investment by the government in ALS research.”
The association further added, “Pat continued to raise awareness and funds for the fight against ALS and our thoughts are with the Quinn family and all of his friends and supporters. Pat was loved by many of us within the ALS community and around the world.”
As soon as the news broke out, social media got flooded with posts. A lot of people condoled Quinn’s death while a lot of them expressed their gratitude for his work towards raising awareness for the ALS disease.
Quinn was also nominated as the 'Person of the Year' by Time magazine along with his co-creator of Ice Bucket Challenge Peter Frates who passed away due to ALS in 2019.
