Did Speaker Hinch Really Die From COVID?

On December 9th, beloved New Hampshire State Representative and newly-elected Speaker of the House, Dick Hinch, passed away suddenly at his home. Hinch was 71 years old and in good enough health to conduct all the duties of a legislator and more. Without missing a beat, the politician-media complex blurted out that Hinch died of COVID-19. Publications and politicians supportive of the COVID-19 paranoia-agenda and authoritarianism in general have been quick to blame Republicans for killing the jovial and amicable legislator. 

But the writers of this article, which include three advanced emergency medical professionals (with a combined 25 years of experience treating critical patients in some 20 systems spanning 15 States in several types of practices) have a question or two about the assertion that COVID was responsible for Mr. Hinch’s sudden death:

COVID is a virus, which causes a disease, primarily in the lungs. The virus kills patients via ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome). As the virus progresses from a mild lung infection to a moderate and eventually a severe one, it begins to cause symptoms such as fever, lethargy, coughing, and eventually, difficulty breathing. From the onset of symptoms, the difficulty breathing would likely take a few days to develop. Within a few more days, the difficulty breathing would become severe enough that it would make walking around or even breathing while sitting so difficult that the patient would seek medical care. Once in the hospital, the doctors either turn the patient’s deteriorating health around, sustain them and keep them alive, or fail to stop the virus from progressing to full-on ARDS. We have seen patients with ARDS, and it is the most severe and final stage of lung disease before death. Patients in this condition have a 45% chance of dying, even with medical intervention. Their lungs have little to no gas exchange, and many are placed on ECMO for oxygenation. Even ventilators do little good for these patients, because their lungs are useless, due to being filled with substances that prevent oxygen from diffusing into the bloodstream.

According to the CDC (the US government, Dr. Fauci, etc.), the median time from their onset of illness to the time they experienced dyspnea was 5–8 days and the median time from onset of illness to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) was 8–12 days. 

Keep in mind that Hinch was seen in a meeting on Tuesday and seemingly had no health issues whatsoever. He was found dead on Wednesday morning. 

So, based on the physiology of this virus and how it kills, what are the chances that a person, who was seen and appeared normal, died from COVID just a few hours later? Roughly zero, according to the emergency medical professionals that we asked. There are several other medical conditions that can kill patients very quickly, including heart attacks, with or without symptoms, strokes (hemorrhagic or ischemic), anaphylaxis, opioid overdose (IV), and certain lethal arrhythmias (caused by R-on-T phenomenon).

Every year, heart disease is the number one killer in the US. And the world. By far. According to the AHA, over 70% of men in Hinch’s age group have cardiovascular disease. According to the HEART risk stratification system for a heart attack, Hinch would have received five or six points (over 65, overweight, cardiac history) out of the six possible points that we could measure (we can’t measure his Troponin levels and we can’t see his EKG) in his case. This demonstrates just how likely it was that he died from a heart attack. 

What killed Dick Hinch? Though we admit to not having direct or first-hand knowledge, we believe that considering all of the above information about emergency medicine and Hinch’s known medical history (he was overweight and had multiple heart attacks in the past few years, according to sources), the obvious answer would be that he died of a heart attack. But in any case, we welcome serious medical input that can explain how someone with no symptoms of a virus can suddenly die of that virus within hours.

Ignoring the science, politicians and their cronies in the media wasted no time announcing that Hinch clearly died of COVID. These claims are backed by the Attorney General, who said that Hinch’s autopsy (which was conducted by the government) included a positive COVID result. As we explain in this article, the tests being used for COVID are exponentially too sensitive (40xCT vs 25xCT), meaning that an incredibly high number of positive results are false positives due to amplifying the virus far too many times. Furthermore, even if Hinch did have COVID, saying that it was the cause of death is more than likely incorrect and irresponsible.

Joining their anti-freedom leftist colleagues, Republican statists such as State Rep. William Marsh blamed Hinch’s mourning friends for murdering him: “Those in our caucus who refused to take precautions were responsible for Dick Hinch’s death”. 

Governor Sununu, who appointed Marsh to the ‘Economic Reopening Task Force’ also condemned those who oppose mask mandates and other corona-fascism: “I would say this: It is unfortunately a tragic and cautionary tale … that everybody has such a responsible role to play in protecting the safety of others and not just themselves.”

This is not the first time that anti-freedom politicians and their media allies excitedly announced that a public figure died of COVID despite the evidence pointing in another direction. On July 30th, Herman Cain died at the age of 74 after a 14 year battle with stage 4 metastatic cancer. The average black man – not necessarily one as sick as Cain – is not expected to live nearly as long as he did, according to the CDC. Immediately, the media exclaimed that COVID is what KILLED him, simply because the recklessly sensitive COVID test found that he was positive for the virus prior to his death. Of course, we have seen that leftists are so eager to advance their paranoia agenda that they attribute motorcycle crash victims’ deaths to COVID.

Of course, authoritarian politicians like Sununu – whose latest dictatorial policy involves unilaterally removing the ability to opt out of the COVID vaccine registry – will use this unscientific story to push his agenda even further. Each day, it seems that Sununu and his liberty-hating allies take away more freedom from innocent, peaceful, healthy citizens. The real tragedy is that politicians use every piece of information – real or fake – that they can get their hands on to support their authoritarian regime. Even when that includes standing on the deceased body of their former colleague and late Speaker of the New Hampshire House. May you rest in peace, Dick. To many of your friends it would appear that even while being careful with your health (since we saw you with a mask on, most, if not all of the time) you lived the ‘Live Free or Die’ motto and we are glad that you aren’t here to see this despicable politicization of a good man’s death. Thank you for always being kind to us and everyone we know.