South Dakota Man Dies Following MMA Fight

Dustin Jensen, a 26-year-old amateur mixed martial artist, died following his fight at RingWars on May 18 at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City, S.D.

Jensen, according to a report by the Rapid City Journal, wasn’t involved in an overly violent fight, but did tap out to a triangle choke.

His mother-in-law, Violet Schieman, said that Jensen then hung around and watched a couple of the following fights before returning to the locker room area, where he suffered a seizure.

Jensen was taken to Rapid City Regional Hospital and diagnosed as having increased pressure on his brain. He was put into a medically induced coma before having surgery to reduce the pressure.

“He did not wake up after the surgery and was declared brain dead at 10:23 a.m. (on May 24),” according to Schieman. “He remained on life support until his organs were donated.”

It wasn’t immediately clear what the correlation, if any, was between his fight and Jensen’s death. Shieman said her daughter, Jensen’s wife Rebecca Jenson, claimed that nothing extraordinarily violent happened in the fight.

“Doctors have watched the video and said it shouldn’t have happened,” Schieman said. “They said the fight may have triggered a brain aneurysm, but it was not overly violent.”

An autopsy was scheduled to try and gain further insight into Jensen’s death.

South Dakota currently does not have a regulatory body overseeing mixed martial arts.

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