"Come on!" Aldon Smith's former San Francisco 49ers teammate Anthony Dixon cried out. "He's not responding!"
Out of breath and performing CPR on Smith, Dixon pleaded with his friend as paramedics rushed to help. "Oh my God, Aldon, brother!"
A 911 tape obtained by the Chronicle on Friday revealed frantic attempts to save Smith after he lost consciousness on June 13 . The six-plus-minute call captures the tragic end for the once-promising 49ers and Raiders linebacker, whose quick rise to stardom unraveled after a string of arrests and life struggles.
One moment, Smith was eating pizza in a Chevy pickup truck parked outside the Los Gatos home of his friend, Amir Shirazi. The next, he was not breathing but his eyes were open, according to San Jose Fire Department records.
Less than an hour later, he was declared dead at age 36 at Good Samaritan Hospital.
The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner's Office did not respond to a Chronicle request for an update on an impending autopsy report.
Shirazi was with Smith in his final hours. They delivered pizzas to a local homeless charity in the morning, then made trips to a grocery store and a gas station owned by Shirazi called Moe's Stop, before entering the gated Los Gatos community where Shirazi lived.
Consistent with what he told the Chronicle on the day of Smith's death, Shirazi explained that he left Smith alone in his car for a moment to turn the lights off at a neighbor's home. When he returned, Smith was unconscious. He called 911 just before noon.
"I have a friend, it looks like he fainted or passed away in my car," Shirazi reported to a dispatcher.
"He just had pizza and I came back and he was just fainted and passed out in the car."
The dispatcher asked if Shirazi was still with Smith. Shirazi said yes. The dispatcher followed up by asking if Smith was awake. "No, it looks like he passed away," Shirazi said. "I hope to God not. But he's not breathing, no."
Then a second voice, that of Dixon, a former 49ers running back, emerges.
"How far they away?" Dixon asked. "Where's the hospital at?"
The dispatcher asked Shirazi if he had access to a defibrillator. Shirazi, at first apparently confused about what was being asked, confirmed that he did not and said, "My friend is trying to wake him up. He won't wake up."
The dispatcher then instructed Shirazi to put his phone on speaker so that his hands could be free to help administer chest compressions, and asked that Smith be placed flat on the ground. Shirazi and Dixon could be heard discussing how to get Smith out of the truck.
Amid frequent tone redactions, presumably to protect the sharing of personal information, the dispatcher told Shirazi and Dixon to sync the timing of their compressions with the rate at which she was counting. Dixon uttered, "Come on!" multiple times as they attempted CPR. "He's not responding!" said Dixon, out of breath. Moments later, Dixon pleaded, "Oh my God, Aldon, brother!"
Toward the end of the call, a paramedic asked about drugs and alcohol, presumably as it related to Smith. "I don't know," Dixon answered.
In a text message to the Chronicle on Friday, Shirazi reiterated his shock and what he remembered about Smith's demeanor leading up to his death.
"He was a healthy young man in my opinion and completely normal in my eyes the whole morning when I was with him," Shirazi said. He "didn't complain about nothing to me in the car and he was relaxed, finished eating some pizza and drinking a water bottle right before. Hopefully the autopsy comes out soon."
Smith's cause of death remains unknown. His family has since agreed to have his brain assessed for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative brain disease that can be caused by repeated head injuries and has affected numerous former football players, at the Boston University CTE Center.
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This article originally published at Aldon Smith 'won't wake up': 911 tape reveals frantic final moments of 49er's life .
