Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced on Sunday, December 20, that his grandson Jeremy Carter has died at the age of 28.
Carter, 91, made the announcement at his Sunday school lecture at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, after apologizing to the congregation for being late.
Carter told parishioners, in a video posted by NBC News, that he'd gotten a call at around midnight on Saturday, December 19, explaining that Jeremy had been feeling unwell. "When he got ready to eat supper, he told his mother that he thought he'd go lie down a while," he said. "His heart quit beating."
Jeremy's mother called 911 after checking on her son and the operator told her how to do CPR. An ambulance rushed Jeremy to the hospital, where he was revived, but shortly after Carter arrived at the hospital, at about 1:30 a.m., "his heart stopped beating again," the former president said. Jeremy's cause of death has not yet been confirmed.
Carter spoke about his grandson at the sermon, describing him as "a wonderful young man" and "a very special child."
"Papa, are you going to die someday?" the 39th president recalled his grandson asking him when he was a child. "And I was really happy that my grandchild was concerned about me."
The tragic news comes two weeks after the former Georgia senator announced that he was free of cancer in his brain.
"Went for an MRI this past week and they [doctors] didn’t find any cancer at all in the brain,” Carter told attendees at the same church before his regular Sunday school session on December 6.
The former president has been married to former first lady Rosalynn Carter since 1946. The couple has four children.
