Moises De Pena/WireImage.comMia Amber Davis was only 36, so obviously there are questions as to what caused her sudden death on Tuesday.
The plus-size model and actress, who scored some of the biggest laughs in the 2000 comedy Road Trip, could very well have suffered a pulmonary embolism—a blood clot that travels to the lungs—after undergoing surgery the day before, Dr. David Baron, former chief of staff at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center & Orthopaedic Hospital, tells E! News.
"It's rare, but it's a known complication of surgery," Baron said.
"It's most common when people have had immobilization of a lower extremity," Baron, who never treated or knew Davis, continued.
"For more complicated operations to the lower extremity—knee replacement, hip replacements—they are in the hospital for a couple of days and they are on a blood thinner and on these contraptions in their bed called positive machines. These machines keep the leg moving just a little—it bends the leg and straightens it. The idea is that is if you keep the blood moving it doesn't clot."
Davis, however, had outpatient surgery—common protocol for arthroscopic knee surgery, he adds.
When a patient is sedentary after surgery, clots can develop, Baron says.
"It depends how big the clot is," he says regarding the severity of the condition. "If it is a big one and it gets stuck in one of the major arteries of the lungs, there is a threshold where it is not survivable."
Davis was pronounced dead at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center yesterday at 9:39 a.m. after collapsing at home.