David Rose Deaf Quadriplegic Dies, Hoax Revealed – UDPATE
David Rose, quadriplegic Twitter sensation, dies age 24
24-year-old David Rose, became known on Twitter for his funny and touching tweets. That he was deaf and quadriplegic added to his fame, as more than 13,000 people followers went to his Twitter blog almost daily to see what he was talking about. It was with great sadness, therefore, many read his final tweet on Thursday, a tweet posted by his sister after David himself had died earlier that day of pneumonia, reports The Daily Mail.
David Rose was admitted to a California hospital last week with a type of pneumonia few quadriplegics survive. He knew at the time his chances were not good, and he posted about it several times on Twitter. He wasn’t depressed, however, simply saying “hospital sucks but my life doesn’t”.
David’s upbeat attitude was one big reason so many people across the world began to follow him on Twitter and Facebook as, even though he was confined to a wheelchair and had always been deaf, his positive attitude shone through everything he wrote.
Writing about his pneumonia, David said:
“it kick ass on able bodied people who go gym and can lift cars! so i do not know what going happen to me, i have never been to a gym and have been in 2 comas. although second one was very nice because i had silly dreams, mostly about my best friend kate.”
Thinking about his fans right to the end, David composed a final blog post that he gave to his sister Nicole to post in the event of his death. She followed his wishes a few hours after he had died, so that his many thousands of Twitter followers would be able to read his final messages.
In the blog entry, which Dave asked his sister Nichole to post in the event of his death, Rose adds:
“You are all special. all of you unique! love each other and make each other smile. a good joke is good medicine! make sure everyone around you have a smile ok? always do what is right. always! but forgive yourself if you forget sometimes. i have to go now. i love you all. i really do. you are amazing. i will never forget you!”
David’s final Twitter post simply ended with, “i have to go now. i love you all. i really do. you are amazing. i will never forget you!”
It turns out the who thing was a hoax, according to reports.
With the help of anonymous tips and theChive.com, Dave Rose’s entire life was revealed to be a concoction of a man’s imagination.
Canadian blogger, Kristi-Anne, had her suspicions and The Chive hired a private investigator.
Then a person with the user name Nichole Rose posted in the comments section on Kristi-Anne’s blog.
“Congratulations on some very nice online sleuthing,” he wrote. Yes, “Nichole” mentions in the comment he is a “guy”, Yahoo news reported.
“I started the whole thing — but it was to quietly die after ‘David’ did, and Nichole would just disappear.”
The mystery person says he didn’t want to be famous and until recently only had a handful of friends.
He said the final post was meant to “inspire people to love and live a better life, and the public knowledge that it came under this false pretence takes it all away. I hope that people who were moved by it still live by it, but it seems unlikely.”
The man whose picture was used as Dave Rose is Hunter Dunn, a man living with cerebral palsy in Virginia.
Over at theCHIVE, the Resigs wrote they were devastated by the deception.
In the end, this story played out more like a Hollywood film than real life. We’ve all been victimized by this disturbed individual. Here at theCHIVE, we often post funny and inspiring stories. It never dawned on us that somebody with such an established internet footprint would actually be mascarading as a deaf, physically handicap person. It would seem absurd to believe somebody would go so far as to fake a death.
