English teacher and TV personality Mark Selikoff passed away on Oct. 25, his wife, Huang Ying-hui (黃英惠), said in a post on her blog.
Selikoff, 43, was left brain damaged following a motorcycle accident in Taoyuan in 2006.
The American had undergone more than 20 operations and remained bed-ridden, although at one point he gave hope to family and friends with signs of improvement.
His wife thanked everyone who had helped Mark and his family, a news report in the Chinese-language China Times said.
Selikoff appeared on a number of local TV shows, most notably It’s a Different World (世界大不同) hosted by Alex Tung (董至成), where foreigners talk about their experiences of living in Taiwan.
Tung was saddened to lose “an outstanding friend from the US,” he said.
“Mark liked Taiwan very much, and he also wanted to become a TV celebrity. However, before he could realize his dream, the accident took everything away,” the China Times quoted him as saying.
Tung had visited Selikoff in the hospital: “He tried hard to say something to us, but it was difficult because he suffered damage to his vision and brain in the accident.”
Selikoff’s death leaves his wife to care for their two young children, and she was grief-stricken for not being at his side when he died.
She wrote in her blog: “My husband Mark is gone, it happened too suddenly ... but there was not too much pain ... For all this time, I knew he might go away, but unfortunately when it happened, I was not there to see him for the last time.”
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