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July 13, 2026 / 5:49 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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Senator Lindsey Graham died on Saturday, July 11th, at 71. The medical examiner's preliminary finding was an aortic dissection, a tear in the wall of the aorta, the large artery that carries blood out of the heart. The final death certificate is still pending. Most of the coverage called it "sudden." Aortic disease is usually silent until it tears or bursts.What can go wrong in the aortaThe aorta is the body's largest artery, running from the heart down through the chest and abdomen. Three different things can go wrong with it. They're related but not the same, and they get confused all the time.An aneurysm is a bulge. A weak spot in the aortic wall stretches and balloons outward. It happens slowly, over years, and usually causes no symptoms, which is why most aneurysms are found by accident on a scan done for something else. An aneurysm is defined by size. The wider it grows, the thinner and more fragile the wall gets, and the higher the odds that it will eventually fail.
