A childhood friend's younger brother died of this 3 years ago. He laid around hurting for a couple of hours before he called his niece who lived nearby. He lived alone. By the time they got him to the hospital, he was unconscious. They opened him up, fixed the tear, but he never woke up; brain had gone without oxygen. The surgeon said it wasn't a big tear and that, in Tim's case, they could have saved him if he hadn't waited so long.

There was an episode of the show 'Autopsy' that did a segment on Lucile Ball. She had just had heart surgery and was in recovery, but years of smoking had taken their toll and it just let go big time. No way to save her even though she was already in the ICU.