Amanda Huber is the latest guest on the AEW Unrestricted podcast. The widow of Brodie Lee spoke to Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone about the final months of his life.
On a Monday in mid-October, Jon was unable to continue his normal exercise routine on his Peloton bike due to not being able to catch his breath.
Amanda then said she checked his temperature and checked him for symptoms of COVID-19.
The following night (Tuesday in mid-October), he went to AEW and tested negative for COVID-19 but the doctor didn’t feel safe letting him in the bubble with his symptoms. Jon drove home instead.
Jon then quarantined in the home away from his wife and kids. He also developed a high fever but continued to test negative for COVID-19.
Jon said he felt like he had pneumonia but the doctors at the hospital thought he had bronchitis and allergies.
On Sunday, he went back to the hospital. His fever had gone away but his oxygen levels were very low. Jon’s oxygen was at 52, a normal person is at 100. He was then put on oxygen.
The doctors were convinced it was COVID but the tests kept coming back negative.
That Wednesday he was moved to the ICU because the doctors and nurses said they wanted to keep a better eye on him.
At this point, some people from AEW knew what was going on and reached out.
On October 31st, the doctors said they wanted to move Jon to another hospital. The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville was chosen. Jon needed to go on an ECMO machine.
While Amanda was preparing to go to Jacksonville and helping the kids with Halloween, she received word that Jon had crashed and was intubated.
Jon was put on an ECMO machine which was described to her as “dialysis for the lungs.”
Amanda praised the doctors and nurses quite a bit. She talked about taking medication and talking with a therapist to deal with the impacts on her mental health.
Amanda also praised the staff of AEW for how everything was handled. They told everyone at AEW but requested that they keep things quiet. At the time, they felt he would get better because he was showing signs of improvement. Amanda was worried that he would wake up and be upset that things had been published on the internet. Aubrey, Tony, and Amanda all expected the news to leak out and it didn’t.
More advanced tests for COVID-19 were tried and still came back negative.
Basically, doctors don’t know what happened but his lungs were very damaged. They think his high fever was attempting to fight off a lung infection and caused massive scarring of his lungs. She’s hopeful to learn more after an autopsy report.
Jon showed signs of improvement after getting to the Mayo Clinic. He was doing physical therapy and getting better.
November 14th is Amanda’s birthday, the nurses and hospital staff had a cake and banner for her to celebrate.
Jon wasn’t able to talk but things were looking up. In late November, he was taken off the ventilator and put on oxygen but things went very downhill from there.
Jon got worse and the doctors said he either needs a lung transplant or “end of life care.”
Doctors said Jon would not be able to continue wrestling after a lung transplant and would have been immunocompromised for life.
In mid-December, it was revealed that he had an infection in his lungs and things were not looking good.
Amanda then detailed just how much Brodie Jr. loves wrestling. He was having a rough time dealing with everything and said all he wanted for Christmas was for his Dad to come home. When asked what else he might want, Brodie Jr. said he wanted to go to AEW. Chris Jericho flew them on his private jet to an AEW Dynamite show while Amanda was waiting to hear about a possible transplant.
Jon was turned down for lung transplants. Amanda said she was worried this would be the answer due to the infections. They tried some other transplant centers but continued to get turned down.
The hospital called on December 24th to say they needed to start end of life care due to kidney and heart failure.
They tried to have a normal Christmas day. That night they drove to Jacksonville.
She called Cody Rhodes and Big E to ask if they would help tell Brodie Jr. that his father was going to pass away. Cody drove from Atlanta to get there to help and he also had the perspective of having lost his larger-than-life father as well. Cody, Shawn Spears, Peyton Royce, Tyler Breeze and Big E were also there on the day of Jon’s passing.
Due to COVID, there was no memorial service.
“His AEW Celebration of Life, that was his funeral,” Amanda said. “The outpouring of love from the wrestling community has been unreal. The amount of people from every corner of the wrestling world have reached out to me and had their stories about Jon. All of that has been kind of breathtaking.”
“I would have loved to have done a funeral but I can’t risk anybody else’s health. So, the AEW show that was put on that was his send-off, that was his funeral, and that was our saying goodbye to him. It was so beautiful.”
She also talked about how much fun -1 is having right now and having this connection with his Dad.
Amanda was very open, honest, and added humor to a very difficult and tragic story.
