Pedro Zamora - After The Real World and Death

After The Real World and Death

The cast moved out of the loft on June 19, 1994, and the first episodes of The Real World: San Francisco began airing a week later. Zamora visited his family in Miami before returning to San Francisco to live with Sasser. When Winick, Zamora, Murphy, and Ling met again that August for a reunion party, Zamora's health and appearance had worsened and, having previously been talkative, he was often silent for long periods, finding it difficult to follow conversations or remember locations of places he had known for years. When Zamora was in New York for an ultimately canceled interview with CBS's This Morning, his contacts at MTV convinced him to see a doctor, but when he arrived at the MTV offices, he did not know where he was. On August 17, Zamora checked into St. Vincent’s Hospital and was diagnosed with toxoplasmosis, a condition which causes brain lesions, fatigue, headaches and confusion. While medication alleviated the toxoplasmosis, further tests, including a biopsy, revealed he had progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and usually fatal viral inflammation of the brain that breaks down the electrical impulses of the nervous system. Although only 1% of AIDS patients contract PML, it usually dissipates on its own in patients with T-cell counts higher than 300-400. More serious symptoms of the illness can include paralysis or aphasia. At the time, Zamora’s T-cell count was 32. The inflammation was attacking the frontal lobe of his brain, causing him short-term memory loss. Zamora was given three to four months to live.

On September 3, about three weeks after checking into St. Vincent’s, Zamora was flown to Miami to be with his family. The PML slowly took away Zamora’s ability to speak, though when then-President Bill Clinton called Zamora to thank him for his work, Zamora expressed elation at the call and was able to respond. Clinton, along with a Zamora family friend named Alonso R. del Portillo, Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, and Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, reached an agreement with Cuba that would admit 20,000 Cubans per year. The Zamoras would be among the first and would arrive in the next couple of weeks, reuniting the family for the first time in 15 years.

On October 21, Winick announced to the press that MTV had set up a trust fund in order to pay for Zamora's medical costs, as Zamora had no medical insurance.

During the wait for the family members to arrive from Cuba, Zamora developed a high fever and was admitted to Mercy Hospital. Wishing not to subject his family to a slow and prolonged death as had occurred with his mother, Zamora stated his wish not to be kept alive by artificial means. Hospitalized and unable to speak for almost a month, being fed intravenously, and becoming unresponsive, his family honored his wishes and withdrew life support, including medication, food and water. Surrounded by his family, Escarno, Winick, and Ling, Zamora died at 4:40 a.m. EST on November 11, 1994, the day after the final episode of The Real World: San Francisco aired. He was buried on November 13 at Vista Memorial Gardens in Miami Lakes, Florida.