Please tell me what happened to my friend!

I was babysitting my friend's bearded dragon and he passed away on Sunday night. I was devastated as I had grown to like the dragon. I want to know what killed him? He was walking around like normal. I took him out of his tank for a little playtime. All of a sudden, he kept opening and closing his mouth and squirming like he had to poop. A little white stuff (urates I believe) came out. He stopped moving.
His beard and throat were black and it looked like his sides and shoulders were rigid and dark under the skin.

I thought maybe it was a severe impaction situation and I put him in warm water and massaged his belly. He seemed to be moving around in the water. Then he couldn't hold his head up.
I took him out and put him under his lights in a futile hope that would help. He lifted his head towards the lights, flared out his beard for the last time and then dropped him head back down on his branch. His leg twitched a few times and that was it. I tried to breath into his mouth but nothing worked.
I called several emergency vets during this time period and 2 didn't deal with reptiles and one did, but by then, he was dead. All of this took about 30 minutes. He went from normal to dead in 30 minutes.

I had grown to love this lizard over the past year and was devastated. Was it something I did? I got a new bearded dragon juvenile in December. Was he so stressed about there being a new lizard in the home that it killed him? Did he catch some disease from this new dragon? Did he fall and hurt himself when I wasn't home (and some other relative had him....no one said that he fell that day but they might just be saying that) and had internal injuries? I believe he was about 8 years old

I'm sorry to hear this happened. That is very sudden. I can't say what happened for sure though and a necropsy should be done for more information. It sounds like he was struggling the way you're describing his behavior. It's possibly sudden organ failure like a heart attack or similar. Did he eat anything before he started behaving this way? Perhaps he got into something that was toxic?

CooperDragon":370l8red said:

I'm sorry to hear this happened. That is very sudden. I can't say what happened for sure though and a necropsy should be done for more information. It sounds like he was struggling the way you're describing his behavior. It's possibly sudden organ failure like a heart attack or similar. Did he eat anything before he started behaving this way? Perhaps he got into something that was toxic?

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The last thing he ate was a cherry and part of a peach the day before.

I'd think those would be OK. Toxic reactions tend to happen quickly from what I've read and seen though so it would have likely been something close to before he started acting strangely. If not something toxic then my best guess is organ failure of some sort.