Breaking: Rev. Jerry Falwell dies at age 73*

POSTED: 1758 GMT (0158 HKT), May 15, 2007

Story Highlights
• NEW: Evangelist dies at age 73
• Rev. Jerry Falwell found unconscious in office at Liberty University
• School official said Falwell was fine at breakfast

LYNCHBURG, Virginia (AP) -- The Rev. Jerry Falwell has died, a Liberty
University executive said Tuesday. He was 73.

Earlier, the executive said Falwell was hospitalized in "gravely
serious" condition after being found unconscious in his office.

Ron Godwin, the executive vice president of Falwell's Liberty
University, said Falwell was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and
taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. Godwin said he was not sure what
caused the collapse, but "he has a history of heart challenges."

"I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast," Godwin said.
"He went to his office, I went to mine and they found him unresponsive."

Falwell, a television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority, became
the face of the religious right in the 1980s. He later founded the
conservative Liberty University and serves as its president.

Falwell survived two serious health scares in early 2005. He was
hospitalized for two weeks with what was described as a viral infection,
then hospitalized again a few weeks later after going into respiratory
arrest.