MAMMOTH, Calif. -- The 6-year-old son of 'Incredible Hulk' television series star Bill Bixby died of a rare childhood illness during a weekend ski trip, a studio spokesman said Tuesday.
The child, Christopher Sean Bixby, became ill Saturday while visiting Mammoth ski resort area with his mother, actress Brenda Benet, and was taken to Mammoth Hospital that evening, Universal Studios spokesman Ben Halpern said.
Surgeons diagnosed the boy's ailment as acute epiglotitis and performed a tracheotomy on him Sunday, but the child lapsed into a coma and cardiac arrest after the operation and died about 6 p.m., Halpern added.
The funeral will be conducted privately in Los Angeles, Halpern said. Bixby, who did not accompany his wife and child on the trip, was in Los Angeles at the time of his son's death, Halpern said.
Christopher was born Sept. 25, 1974 and attended school in Los Angeles. He was the only child of Bixby and his wife, Miss Benet.
