Third fitness influencer to ‘die suddenly’ this year
A popular New Zealand fitness influencer and mother of five died suddenly this month.
No cause of death has been revealed for 41-year-old Raechelle Chase, who regularly posted about fitness and relationships for her 1.4 million Facebook followers. She was featured on 14 magazine covers and was the first Kiwi woman to compete in the annual Olympia bodybuilding event.
Her five children include twin boys and her oldest daughter, Anna.
“She was supportive, kind-hearted and always had the best advice for us,” Anna wrote in a statement, according to News.au.com. “She was a wildly driven woman with ambition and has inspired millions of people around the world. I miss her immensely and that love won’t ever fade.”
Chase joins a growing list of young bodybuilders who have been dying suddenly with no specific cause of death noted.
Last month world-renowned bodybuilder Neil Currey died at 34, which his trainer Milo Sarcev called “absolutely shocking.” Currey was a professional bodybuilder who won the gold medal at the 2022 New York Pro. He then went on to compete in Mr. Olympia, the international contest which launched the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He finished 16th in the Classic Physique category.
Currey’s sudden death came four months after famed bodybuilding influencer Jo Lindner died suddenly from an aneurysm at 30.
Lindner, who was known under the nom de guerre Joesthetics, had revealed just weeks before that he had been “peer-pressured” into taking four COVID-19 vaccine shots, which he did not want to do.
“You know how it is. It’s the same thing — you go to a party and you are with the wrong people, all of a sudden you might do something in this party you don’t want to do,” Lindner said on Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk podcast. “I was in this place . . . and my friends said, ‘we can get it, you should get it, man.’”
“You got peer pressured into the vax?” Martyn asked.
“Yeah, kind of,” replied Lindner.
The fitness star shared that following the injections, foreign particles were found in his blood that prompted his doctor to recommend he get his blood cleansed in a process called plasmapheresis. Lindner underwent the procedure twice.
“The doctor was like, ‘You need to do it, man, if you want to survive after you took these shots. You need to do this now,’” said Lindner.
Last year award-winning bodybuilding and fitness icon Doug Brignole died suddenly after issuing a public challenge to those who refused the COVID-19 injections.
“I have enough confidence in the vaccine, based on my research, to get it done,” Brignole posted to Facebook in April 2021. “Those of you who think the vaccine kills people can use me as a test. If I die, you were right. If I don’t die, and have no ill effects, you were wrong, and should admit it (at least to yourselves). Better yet, you should admit that you were misled, and tell the world who misled you, so other people can benefit by avoiding those fearmongers.”
Brignole died 18 months later at the age of 63. He was in good health and preparing to guest pose at the AAU Mr. Universe in Las Vegas on October 22. A coroner report listed Brignole’s cause of death as COVID-19 with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease — hardened arteries.
Brignole had been vaccinated twice with the Moderna shots.