page_title: James Irwin
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: James Irwin / Death
caption_attribution_description: Col. James Benson Irwin, U.S. Air Force, was interred Aug. 15, 1991. Irwin, former Apollo 15 astronaut, died of a heart attack Aug. 8, 1991, in Glenwood Springs, Colo. He was buried with full Air Force honors in Section 3, Grave 2503-G-2 in Arlington National Cemetery. (U.S. Army photo by Rachel Larue/released)
context_page_description: Col. James Benson Irwin, USAF was an American astronaut, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. He served as Apollo Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 15, the fourth human lunar landing. He was the eighth person to walk on the Moon and the first, and youngest, of those astronauts to die.
context_section_description: Irwin suffered three major heart attacks. One occurred less than two years after Apollo 15, when Irwin was 46, while he was playing handball; he underwent an emergency triple bypass operation. Two months later he suffered a subsequent heart attack while skiing in Colorado. Irwin suffered another heart attack in 1986, when he collapsed during a run and was found pulseless on a curb. Doctors from NASA doubted the incidents were related to space travel, and noted that pre-flight testing indicated a tendency for cardiac arrhythmias during strenuous exercise.
  On August 8, 1991, Irwin suffered another heart attack after a bike ride. Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful, and Irwin died later that day. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He and his wife, Mary Ellen, to whom he was married for three decades, had five children.
  Of the 12 men who have walked on the Moon, Irwin was the first to die. The James Irwin Charter Schools were founded in Colorado in his honor.
  A patch cut by Irwin from a backpack abandoned on the Moon during the Apollo 15 mission was auctioned at Christie's in 2001 for US$310,500 in a consignment of material from Irwin's estate that garnered "a combined $500,000".
caption: Grave of Col. James Benson Irwin at Arlington National Cemetery
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