LOS ANGELES, Calif. --

Actor John Ritter died unexpectedly in 2003 on his daughter Stella’s fifth birthday, and now his widow is fighting in court, adamant that John did not have to die.

Ritter’s widow, actress Amy Yasbeck, shares her story, on the eve of jury selection in the case.

“I mouthed to him as they were wheeling him to surgery with this look like, ‘Sorry I’m ruining Stella's birthday face, and I said, ‘I love you!’ — and that is the last time I saw him until I saw him dead after he died. I loved him — bigger picture, the world loved him and I’m not gonna let this go by and not have the real thing come out of it.”

Yasbeck shared every intimate detail with “Today’s” Meredith Vieira.

Complaining of chest pains and nausea, John was rushed on September 11, 2003 to Saint Joseph’s hospital.

The ER doctor ordered an X-Ray that never took place.

Around four hours later, the beloved actor was dead.

“I heard code blue and the crash cart was going and I was like, ‘What the hell is going on!’” Yasbeck recounted. “It was very scary and the doctor came to tell me it was an aortic dissection that I had never heard of.”

The hospital admitted misdiagnosing Ritter and settled with Yasbeck for just over $9 million.

Now, Amy’s original $67 million lawsuit, an amount she claims her husband would have earned over his lifetime, continues, specifically targeting the ER’s cardiologist and a radiologist who administered a body scan of Ritter, two years prior to his death.

Both doctors admit no wrongdoing.

“There are some people that are saying isn’t about John as much as it is about greed,” Vieira asked Yasbeck.

“I say that’s not what the trial is about and I know the money, if there is money to be made, it will start the John Ritter Foundation for Aortic Health,” Yasbeck said. “There were opportunities to save John. John didn’t have to die.”

Copyright 2009 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
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