Warning: This story discusses suicide.<\/p>\n
Douglas ‘Doug’ Ruch was a 56-year-old US National who arrived in New Zealand just days before his death.<\/p>\n
He gained media attention claiming to have terminal prostate cancer and fundraising to travel and do volunteer work.<\/p>\n
Ruch’s campaign, DyingToServe, featured in a number of outlets including The Guardian, NBC, and The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
He fundraised to travel to the US for volunteer work with different organisations, claiming to have the disease and wishing to “spend his remaining time serving other”, Coroner Tracey Fitzgibbon said.<\/p>\n
Ruch’s campaigns raised significant amounts of money, with The Guardian reporting one of his GoFundMe’s reached US$230,000 (NZ$391,386).<\/p>\n
In September 2025, Ruch’s ex-wife with whom he had four children and was estranged had contacted him over child support he had not been paying.<\/p>\n
“Doug sent some money and mentioned that his health was declining, and he believed he would die within six months,” coroner Fitzgibbon said.<\/p>\n
“On September 14 2025, Doug set up a new GoFundMe to fund travel to Australia.”<\/p>\n
A month later Ruch messaged his ex-wife again, saying that he only had “a few months” left to live.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Where to get help. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
In December 2025, Ruch’s philanthropy and diagnosis came under scrutiny. He had deactivated his fundraisers and shut down his social media pages.<\/p>\n
Days before his death, Ruch travelled to Auckland and checked into a central city hotel. Local journalist David Farrier published an article on December 17 titled Beware of Doug. <\/p>\n
“A GoFundMe conman tricked the USA. Now he’s coming for NZ,” the sub-heading read.<\/p>\n
Ruch had phoned his hotel’s reception raising concerns about his personal details being released after an unsaved number sent him a link to Farrier’s article.<\/p>\n
The receptionist assured him his details wouldn’t be shared.<\/p>\n
“Doug said this was ‘good’, as he had ‘dangerous internet stalkers’ who might be looking for him,” coroner Fitzgibbon said.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Ruch was dead. Details of his death cannot be reported, as the coroner has ruled it a suicide.<\/p>\n
A post mortem revealed no evidence of prostate cancer<\/p>\n
“Doug’s ex-wife recalled that he had a history of anxiety, for which he was prescribed medication, and had an incident of suicidal intent in 2019 following their separation,” the coroner said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A coroner has found a man who raised thousands of dollars claiming to have terminal cancer did not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[134,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-592652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}