There is no final proof that he died, however there is no reason to believe he is still alive either. As already mentioned i was in contact with him and there was no reason for him to stop answering me. He wanted to sue Betz and i promised to help him.
In his 4th surgery he got his 4th nail plus a bone graft for his left leg. The bone was taken from his hip. It was a big surgery because they had to fill a 10cm gap. He wrote to me :“ I am recovering from the surgery, it was pretty intense, I had a lot of pain and my leg seemed to be reacting a bit strange to the bone graft. I also have a lot of discomfort in the hip area where the bone graft was done, and I think it will be awhile before get somewhere with all of this.”
There was much more in his email. Shortly afterwards he stopped replying to me. That was in May 2015. So i'm quite convinced he died.