Benjamin Colby
Date of birth -
Date of death - April 3, 2025
From the Portland Oregonian newspaper:
The man who died at Bruce Springsteen's concert at Portland's Moda Center on Friday was remembered as a loyal friend and fan who "couldn't wait" to see the show.
Ben Colby, 51, of Hillsboro, spent all day Friday texting friends about how excited he was to go to the concert, according to Tiffany Spaulding, a friend and family spokesperson.
"I'm still in can't-believe-it mode," Colby wrote in his final text to Spaulding.
The death resulted in a chaotic scene behind the stage Friday, as bystanders in section 209 - including a Portland cardiologist and former nurse sitting directly behind Colby - jumped to assist him after he slumped over in his chair. But for Colby, the night began full of promise.
George Spaulding, Tiffany Spaulding's ex-husband, had been given two tickets to Springsteen's show by a coworker and instantly thought of inviting his old friend Colby, Tiffany Spaulding said. The duo met up for a beer and a bite, then rode MAX light rail to the Moda Center, Tiffany Spaulding said.
At the arena, fans nearby noticed George Spaulding standing while Colby sat, using the Shazam app to identify which songs The Boss was singing.
About an hour into the show, a bystander noticed Colby leaning over in his seat, unresponsive. Joshua Roark, a cardiologist at Adventist Health's Northwest Heart Center, and his wife, Jennifer Roark, happened to be sitting behind Colby. They reached over and checked for a pulse but couldn't feel one, then leaped into Colby's aisle to begin chest compressions while asking others to go for help.
Springsteen was seemingly unaware of the medical emergency. The band continued to play and the Moda Center's house lights remained off.
Once Colby was carried to the lobby, emergency responders took him to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, where the Spauldings learned that attempts to resuscitate him in the ambulance and at the hospital had failed. Doctors described his cause of death as ventricular fibrillation - essentially cardiac arrest.
According to the American Red Cross, only 10% of people suffering an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survive the ordeal.
On Monday, a spokesperson for the Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office said they had declined to investigate the death. That is a common result when natural causes are suspected.
Colby was born in Molalla and attended Pacific University in Forest Grove, where "he made lifelong friendships," graduating in 1997, Tiffany Spaulding said. He is survived by three brothers and a sister, many nieces and nephews and is known as "Uncle Ben" to many of his friends' children. "He has been in our family and a part of my life for 18 years," Tiffany Spaulding said, "and he and my ex-husband and their group of friends have been best friends since college."
Friends and family are taking solace that Colby died doing something he loved. "There are best friends and then there are George and Ben," Tiffany Spaulding said. "They were each other's ride-or-die. And he was at a concert he couldn't wait to see."