Doctor Who Treated Alexei Navalny Dead At 55 Due To Cardiac Arrest

Sergey Maximishin -- the Russian medico who helmed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s treatment after being poisoned by nerve agent Novichok -- died of a heart attack on Wednesday evening. Maximishin, 55, was reportedly rushed to the same hospital in Omsk where he used to work at, due to a spike in his blood pressure. He was the head of intensive care at the time of his death and incidentally died in the cardiology ER of his hospital.

“The doctor actually died of a heart attack, because he had a really stressful job and he actually lost people who were close to him,” said spokeswoman Galina Nazarova to the media outlet, Life.ru. “It’s just the human heart,” she told the outlet.

Condolences came pouring in from all quarters, including the Omsk Region Health Minister Alexander Murakhovsky. “He gave his local hospital 28 years, saved thousands of lives, and left many talented students who will carry on his legacy,” said Murakhovsky. “Sergey Maximishin literally dragged out from “the other side” even the most critical, hopeless patients with his hands,” he added.

Navalny has been subjected to serve 3 and a half years in prison on the grounds that his visit to Germany violated his parole. Heated protests broke out across Moscow and St. Petersburg following Navalny’s arrest on Jan. 17.

A recent report in the New York Post indicated that Navalny didn’t just survive one assassination attempt, but also withstood another poisoning bout while still bring in a coma.

“This was with a view to him being dead by the time he arrived in Berlin,” said one source of the alleged second botched assassination attempt, as cited in the New York Post, before Navalny was permitted to fly to Germany for treatment.

Despite the Kremlin’s denials, Navalny has repeatedly held Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for his “near-fatal” poisoning. He has openly slammed Putin as “the tsar of corruption” and referred to the Russian leader’s party as a group of “crooks and thieves.”