Houston rapper BeatKing, also known as Club Godzilla and Justin Riley, has died at the age of 39. He reportedly passed out during a recording session and was rushed to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism. And unfortunately, pulmonary embolisms can quickly become fatal.

BeatKing first gained wider attention when his single “Crush” essentially destroyed everything and went viral in 2010. Arguably his biggest hit, however, was “Then Leave,” which not only went viral on social media in 2020, but also stayed off Billboard’s Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart for a while, peaking at number three. BeatKing’s work has included collaborations with 2 Chainz, Bun B, T-Pain, and Ludacris.

A pulmonary embolism is a medical emergency. It’s not something you can just walk away or treat with cold balm. It’s a blood clot that travels into and blocks an artery that supplies blood to your lungs. Such a clot most often forms in one of the deep veins in your leg, hence the name deep vein thrombosis or DVT for such a clot when it first forms. But in rarer cases, the clot can originate from elsewhere in the body.

Your lungs are important because they allow you to breathe and do all the gas exchange. They are where oxygen enters your bloodstream and carbon dioxide is removed from your red blood cells to be blown out through your mouth and nose. When a pulmonary embolism blocks a pulmonary artery, it prevents blood flow to the part of the lung supplied by that artery, which is clearly not good.

If your lung tissue is deprived of blood flow and thus oxygen, it will soon die like any other body tissue if blood flow is not restored quickly. Additionally, if blood flow in the pulmonary artery is blocked by one or more blood clots, pressure in the pulmonary artery can continue to build. This causes your heart to work even harder to pump blood through this higher pressure. When this pressure becomes too high, at some point your heart essentially says, “I can’t do this anymore” and fails.

For these reasons, a pulmonary embolism can be life-threatening, so be aware of any symptoms that may indicate a pulmonary embolism. The most common are sudden, unexplained shortness of breath, chest pain, or fainting. Other possible symptoms include coughing up bloody mucus, a fast or irregular heartbeat, feeling lightheaded, or turning blue. Yes, turning blue is usually not a sign that everything is OK.

Treatment then involves keeping your blood as oxygen-rich as possible while trying to clear the clots and prevent more from traveling to the lungs. The doctor may give clot-dissolving medications or use an invasive procedure to remove the clots. He or she will also usually give blood thinners to prevent more clots from forming. Time is of the essence. The sooner treatment is given, the more likely you are to survive the pulmonary embolism.

Of course, just because you’re having difficulty breathing while reading this doesn’t necessarily mean you have a pulmonary embolism. Again, the symptoms cannot be explained by things like increased physical activity or worry. You should also know if and when you are at increased risk for DVTs or other blood clots.

Blood tends to clot when it stops flowing. This can stop your wounds from bleeding, which is a good thing. But every good thing has its downside. Anything that slows down blood flow can increase your risk of blood clotting. For example, physical inactivity can make blood more likely to pool in your legs, causing deep vein thrombosis.

There are also medical conditions that increase the risk of blood clots forming in general. These include clotting disorders, heart conditions that slow blood flow, blood vessel problems that disrupt blood flow, kidney disease, Covid-19, and certain types of cancer or medications. After surgery, the chance of blood clotting may be increased for a period of time, typically the first two or three months after general anesthesia. Oh, and then there’s smoking. Yes, the increased risk of blood clots is another of the long list of reasons not to smoke.

It is not clear what risk BeatKing might have had for blood clots. Sometimes the reasons for the blood clots are clear. Sometimes they are not. Regardless, BeatKing sadly died of a pulmonary embolism at the relatively young age of 39.