The sudden death of Mythbusters co-host Grant Imahara on Monday at age 49 has devastated fans of the show. Particularly as it comes less than a year after the death of his fellow co-host, Jessi Combs.
While a cause of death wasn’t immediately available, it was later revealed that Imahara died following a brain aneurysm. Combs, meanwhile, passed away in a racing accident back in August while she was trying to break a new record. The fatal incident occurred when she was attempting to break her own record in the Alvord Desert in Oregon. The jet-propelled vehicle Combs was piloting failed to stop properly, which then meant it sped past the safe area and crashed.
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Combs had previously earned the titled of “fastest woman on four wheels,” which she got after hitting speeds of 398 miles per hour in her jet-powered North American Eagle Supersonic Speed Challenger. The idea of the vehicle was described as “taking “a jet fighter, and turn it into the fastest racing machine in history” that would “move onto the ultimate goal of going supersonic.”
Mythbusters host Adam Savage spoke out about Combs’ death on Twitter. “I’m so so sad Jessi Combs has been killed in a crash,” Savage tweeted at the time. “She was a brilliant and top-notch builder, engineer, driver, fabricator, and science communicator, and strove every day to encourage others by her prodigious example. She was also a colleague, and we are lesser for her absence.” Savage also tweeted about the death of Imahara, saying that his death left him “at a loss.”
“No words,” Savage continued. “I’ve been part of two big families with Grant Imahara over the last 22 years. Grant was a truly brilliant engineer, artist and performer, but also just such a generous, easygoing, and gentle PERSON. Working with Grant was so much fun. I’ll miss my friend.”
A native of Los Angeles, California, Imahara studied electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, and later broke into the entertainment world through his work at Lucasfilm’s THX and Industrial Light and Magic and branching out to numerous blockbusters since. Combs was born in Rockerville, South Dakota, and later graduated from WyoTech in 2004, who later hired her and another student to build a car from the ground up in six months to debut at the annual Specialty Equipment Marketing Association show. Later, she became an accomplished driver on the racing circuit.
