Charlie Daniels Dead After Suffering Stroke: Country Music Legend Had History of Heart Problems, Health Issues

Country music star Charlie Daniels passed away on Monday, but this was far from his first brush with serious medical issues. The singer was a survivor of cancer, heart issues and even a previous stroke before he died on Monday morning, according to his publicist. Many fans are looking back on his resilient history in the face of his passing.

Daniels died of a hemorrhagic stroke on Monday morning at the age of 83. After decades in the country music industry, Daniels’ career was still going strong at the time of his death. However, as long ago as 1980, medical issues threatened to take him off the stage for good. At the time, Daniels suffered a serious arm injury while working on his farm in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. According to a report by The Associated Press, he required surgery and four months of rehabilitation to get his arm back to normal again, but he returned to playing music in spite of it all.

This may have been the least of Daniels’ medical tribulations over the years. Daniels was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2001, but within the year he was treated and overcame the disease. Daniels wrote about this from his own perspective in an essay published by The TODAY Show in 2014, titled: “Doctors Treat and God Heals.”

Daniels next tangled with medical trouble in 2010, when he suffered a stroke on Jan. 15 while he was riding a snowmobile. Daniels was treated there in Colorado and was released after just two days. In his essay, Daniels noted that the only lasting sign of the strong was “a small amount of residual effect.. in my left arm and hand.”

Finally, in 2013, Daniels was hospitalized near his home in Nashville, Tennessee, with what turned out to be a mild case of pneumonia. Fortunately, this hospitalization let doctors know that Daniels’ heart was working too hard, and he was in need of a pacemaker. Daniels had the device put in and spent just a few days recovering before he was released.

“I have had my pacemaker for a year now. It is unobtrusive and doesn’t change my lifestyle at all except I have to be careful around high-wattage electricity,” he wrote in 2014. “What’s happened in medical science in my lifetime is truly mind-boggling — so much suffering alleviated, so many lives improved and changed, and I speak as one who knows through experience. I always remember that the doctors treat and God heals, an unbeatable combination.”