Notable deaths this week: ABC news medical reporter; ex-ambassador who saved Americans in Iran

• Jamie Zimmerman, a doctor and reporter with ABC News' medical unit, has drowned while on vacation in Hawaii. She was 31.

Zimmerman apparently lost her footing while trying to cross the Lumahai River on Kauai's north shore and was swept out to sea, ABC News President James Goldston said Thursday in a note to staff. She died Monday, according to a post written by Zimmerman's mother on the doctor's Facebook page.

"The area where Jamie is believed to have lost her footing is right at the river mouth - at Lumahai Beach," Kauai County spokeswoman Sarah Blane said in an email to The Associated Press.

The incident occurred just before 4 p.m., and witnesses called police to say they saw a woman being swept out to sea, Kauai police said in a news release. Lifeguards rushed to the scene on a Jet Ski and found her unresponsive in the water about 200 yards east of the river mouth. They brought her to shore and administered CPR. She was taken to Wilcox Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Lumahai can be dangerous for those unfamiliar with the area, particularly during the winter when surf is up on the North Shore, Blane said. However, there were no flash flood or high surf advisories on this day. While rescuers have responded to incidents there, there has not been a major incident in that area in recent memory, she said.

Her last Facebook post updated her profile with a smiling picture taken with Kauai's north shore in the background.

• Ken Taylor, Canada's ambassador to Iran who sheltered Americans at his residence during the 1979 hostage crisis, has died. He was 81.

Taylor kept the Americans hidden at his residence and at the home of his deputy, John Sheardown, in Tehran for three months. Taylor facilitated their escape by arranging plane tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports.

He was heralded as a hero in both the U.S. and Canada for helping save the Americans in the clandestine operation.

Some of Taylor's exploits in Iran in 1979 later became the subject of the 2012 Hollywood film, "Argo." But Taylor and others, including former-U.S. President Jimmy Carter, felt the film downplayed his role and that of Canada in the operation.

"Ambassador Taylor's actions during the Iran hostage crisis were unquestionably heroic," said Peter Boogaard, a White House National Security Council spokesman.

U.S. Ambassador Bruce Heyman called Taylor's actions courageous.

"Ambassador Taylor earned the enduring gratitude of the United States - and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal - for his valor and ingenuity in harboring six American citizens trapped in Iran in the aftermath of the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and, ultimately, in securing their safe return," Heyman said in a statement.

• Marty Beil, the burly and sometimes brusque leader of the Wisconsin state employee labor union for 30 years, has died. He was 68.

• Howard Kendall, who led Everton to two league championships and a European title in the mid-1980s in the first of three coaching spells with the English club, has died. He was 69.

• Richard "Dick" Walters, a leader in the effort to get the state to pass aid-in-dying legislation, used the rules established under the law to end his own life on Friday. He was 90 years old and had been battling cancer.

Walters, the leader of Patient Choices Vermont, died at a Shelburne retirement community where he had been staying, said the Necrason Group, a Montpelier lobbying firm that worked with him.

"Dick was diagnosed with lung cancer in early 2014, yet continued to engage in significant discussions in connection with end of life choice," the group said a statement. "His health declined very rapidly over the past two months, and Dick was grateful to be able to direct his own end of life under Act 39."

• The Red Sox are mourning the death of former prospect and scout Chuck Koney.

The team says Koney died on Monday in Orland Park, Illinois, at the age of 90. He had been a scout in the organization for more than 40 years after his playing career ended when he lost his leg in a home heater explosion.

• Mikhail Burtsev, an Olympic fencer who won gold medals for the Soviet Union in 1976 and 1980, died Friday, the Russian Fencing Federation said. He was 59.

• Joan Leslie, whose expressive almond eyes and innocent beauty made her one of the most popular film ingénues of the 1930s and 40s, has died at the age of 90.

After signing with Warner Bros. at the age of 15, her first major role was in "High Sierra" as the disabled Velma opposite Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino.

In her 20-year career, the Detroit native performed in over 30 films. She romanced Gary Cooper in "Sergeant York," danced with Fred Astaire in "The Sky's the Limit," and sang with James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

After marrying physician William Caldwell in 1950, she put her career on hold to raise her twin daughters and do charity work.

• Former New England Patriots offensive lineman Sam Adams has died in Houston at the age of 67.

"This is really sad news for Patriots fans who enjoyed watching Sam Adams play and the many Patriots teammates who played with him throughout the 1970s," Patriots Chairman and CEO Robert Kraft said, before referring to one of the nation's founding fathers, Boston-born Samuel Adams. "Not only was he a stalwart in the trenches for nearly a decade, but I can't think of a more appropriately named player to represent the Patriots."

• Sybil Bailey Stockdale, a Navy wife who fought to end the torture of U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam, has died.

Stockdale's son, Sid Stockdale, said Tuesday that his mother died Oct. 10 at a hospital after suffering from Parkinson's disease. She was 90.

Stockdale is the wife of the late Vice Adm. James Bond Stockdale. She found her calling after her husband's plane was shot down during the Vietnam War in 1965 and he was taken prisoner. The U.S. government at the time discouraged military wives from speaking up about the mistreatment of the prisoners of war, Sid Stockdale said. Nonetheless, Stockdale organized military wives who demanded the U.S. government pressure North Vietnam to abide by the Geneva Convention.

• American Nobel laureate for chemistry Richard Heck, who designed a method of building complex molecules that has helped fight cancer, protect crops and make electronic devices, was buried Tuesday in a metropolitan Manila cemetery beside the tomb of his Filipino wife. He was 84.

Heck and his co-winners Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki designed the technique to bind together carbon atoms, a key step in assembling the skeletons of organic compounds used in medicine, agriculture and electronics.

• Joseph R. Tybor, who covered legal affairs for the Chicago Tribune before becoming a spokesman for the Illinois Supreme Court, has died at age 68.

Tybor, born in Chicago, was a graduate of DePaul University. After serving in the U.S. Army, he joined The Associated Press in Chicago. He earned a law degree in 1979 at DePaul and three years later joined the Tribune as legal affairs writer.

• Ken Koe, a Pfizer Inc. chemist who co-invented Zoloft, which once was the most-prescribed the antidepressant drug in the U.S., has died. He was 90.

• The mother of Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter James Taylor has died at age 92.

Gertrude Woodard Taylor died surrounded by four generations of family at her home "overlooking her beloved Stonewall Pond" in Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, the "Fire & Rain" singer said on his website.

James Taylor said his mother "devoted her life to her marriage and her five children, four boys and a girl." Three of her children, James Taylor, Kate Taylor and Livingston Taylor, became professional musicians.

• Dean Chance, who won the 1964 Cy Young Award and later pitched a no-hitter, has died at 74.

Chance died two months after being at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, for his induction into the Angels Hall of Fame.

In 1964, Chance went 20-9 with a 1.65 ERA for the Angels and won the Cy Young - from 1956-66, only one pitcher in the majors won the award each year.