Ryan Roberts didn’t realize how close he flirted with death until the phone call. It came in the night last autumn, a frantic representative of the Douglas County Department of Health wondering how exactly this veteran MMA fighter contracted a bacterial infection that had only been seen four times over the past 15 years in this cozy patch of Nebraska, the same sickening rarity that shrunk Roberts from a robust 170 pounds to a withered 137 over mere weeks. Roberts thought it was the flu. He also thought he was going to die. Either way, it was one hell of an experience, he says, his chuckle awfully dismissive.
On Ryan Roberts, and the other side of tragedy
