Igor Vovkovinskiy, the tallest man in the United States, has died in Minnesota. He was 38.
His family said the Ukrainian-born Vovkovinskiy died of heart disease on Friday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. His mother, Svetlana Vovkovinska, an ICU nurse at Mayo, initially posted about his death on Facebook.
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Vovkovinskiy came to the Mayo Clinic in 1989 as a child seeking treatment. A tumor pressing against his pituitary gland caused it to secrete abnormal levels of growth hormone. He grew to become the tallest man in the US at 7 feet, 8.33 inches (2 meters, 34.5 centimeters) and ended up staying in Rochester.
When he was 27, Vovkovinskiy traveled to New York City and was declared America's tallest living person by a Guinness World Records adjudicator on Oz's show. He edged out a sheriff's deputy in Virginia by one-third of an inch.
