UPTOWN — Two weeks after suffering a massive heart attack while sleeping, Henry "Hank" Anderson, a long-time body piercer at Uptown's Tattoo Factory, passed away Sunday.
According to friends and family, Anderson, 50, endured a "serious" heart attack on Sept. 17 and never regained consciousness.
After spending two weeks in a coma in the Intensive Care Unit, Anderson was moved into hospice last week, where he lived out his final days among loved ones. He died Sunday.
Anderson was a husband, father of three and grandfather, and Tattoo Factory, along with friends, are raising money in his absence to help his family pay for hospital and funeral expenses.
A GoFundMe page seeking to raise $50,000 was just shy of $27,000 on Monday afternoon.
Over Anderson's 30-year career in Chicago, he was at the forefront of helping to popularize body piercing and bring it more into the mainstream, said friend and tattooer David Dillon.
When Anderson first started out piercing at the long-shuttered Body Basics, few were practicing the skill with the dedication and care he did, Dillon said.
Dillon himself was pierced by Anderson when Anderson came to work at Tattoo Factory in Uptown about 15 years ago.
He was "lucky" to have spent "a lot of hours and many, many laughs" with Anderson, Dillon said.
"He would instantly light up a room, had great energy, a good spirit, would make everyone laugh," Dillon said. "He was just a joy to be around."
Dillon described his friend as smart and kind, possessing the "gift of gab" that allowed him to easily make friends with anyone — a true one-of-a-kind person who "will be very missed," he said.
"You don't meet people like him a lot," Dillon said. "You meet maybe one or two in a lifetime."
