Joan Rivers Stopped Breathing During Unplanned Throat Biopsy Before Her Hospitalization: Report

New details are emerging about the cause of Joan Rivers‘ hospitalization which ultimately led to her death – and a report is now out saying she initially stopped breathing during an unplanned biopsy to her throat.

The 81-year-old comedienne was reportedly visiting the Yorkville Endoscopy center in NYC last month to have “a diagnostic procedure [to] see why her voice had gotten raspy,” the New York Daily News reports.

Doctors found something on her vocal cords, and another doctor who was with Joan and did not work at the clinic, asked if he could use their tools to biopsy the area. During the biopsy, Joan suffered from a vocal cord contraction laryngospasm and stopped breathing.

Reports say that this is “a huge no-no” for a clinic to allow this to be done as she had agreed to the endoscopy but not the biopsy.

Our continued thoughts go out to Joan‘s family and friends during this time.