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NASCAR champion Kyle Busch before a recent Cup Series event. A sports doctor later described the medical emergency preceding Busch’s reported death as potentially “totally preventable.”

A prominent sports doctor said Saturday that the medical emergency preceding NASCAR star Kyle Busch’s death was a “totally preventable situation,” pointing to alarming symptoms described in newly released 911 call details.

The physician’s comments quickly ignited debate online because they suggested several warning signs may have been overlooked in the hours before Busch collapsed at a North Carolina racing simulator facility.

Sports medicine physician Dr. Jesse Morse made the claim in a post on his social media account Saturday, soon after the Busch family confirmed the cause of death as severe pneumonia that progressed into sepsis, producing what the family described as rapid and overwhelming complications. Morse had previewed his thinking the night before on the NewsNation program Cuomo, where he laid out a medical timeline tracing the crisis back to May 10.

Morse: Busch’s Death Was ‘Totally Preventable’

That was the day Busch radioed his team during a race at Watkins Glen International, asking them to locate a team physician’s assistant named Bill Heisel.

“I’m gonna need a shot,” Busch said over the radio, as reported by Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.

Morse told host Chris Cuomo the request pointed to a physician administering either an antibiotic or something to manage pain and coughing.

The correct protocol at that moment, Morse wrote Saturday, was hospital admission with intravenous antibiotics and proper monitoring. Had that happened, it would have been “a nothing story in 10 days.” Instead, Busch’s medical team allowed him to continue his full racing schedule despite the active infection.

“This was a totally preventable situation,” Morse wrote Saturday morning.

Busch not only kept competing, he won. A week after Watkins Glen, he started on the pole at Dover Motor Speedway and led the most laps in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, claiming his 69th career Truck Series victory. Asked afterward why winning never loses its meaning, Busch gave an answer that appeared haunting in retrospect after Thursday’s news.

“You never know when the last one is,” Busch said.

That performance, in Morse’s view, captured both the extraordinary condition Busch maintained and the way it masked the danger building inside him. The two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion had raced through a worsening illness, powered by the same mental fortitude that defined his career.

“His powerful mind ended up being a double-edged sword,” Morse wrote, “preventing him from getting the proper care he deserved.”

Busch Collapsed in Racing Simulator

Six days after Dover, on Wednesday, May 21, a 911 call went out from the GM Charlotte Technical Center in Concord, N.C., where Busch had been using a racing simulator. The caller described a man on a bathroom floor, conscious but deteriorating, struggling to breathe, very hot, and coughing up blood. The caller asked that the ambulance arrive with its sirens silenced.

Busch was transported to a Charlotte-area hospital and died Thursday at 41. Morse, whose sepsis theory the night before presaged the family’s Saturday announcement, wrote Saturday that hospital intervention two weeks earlier could have altered the tragic outcome entirely.

Busch compiled 63 Cup Series victories — ninth on the all-time list — across a 22-year full-time career. He is survived by his wife, Samantha, and their children, Brexton and Lennix.