Late actor Gabe Khouth's family raising funds for his funeral

Family of 'Once Upon a Time' actor Gabe Khouth who died of a cardiac arrest last week, is urging people to come together and generate funds for the late actor's funeral.

For the same, Khouth's family has even launched a GoFundMe page hoping that it would help in the "celebration of life ceremony" of the slain actor. They also hope that it might provide some economic stability to his children- daughter Shino (12) and son Toshiro (15).

"My brother was born with a congenital heart defect (Tricuspid Atresia) and from the very beginning of his life he had struggled to beat the odds and always strived to lead a vibrant life despite his physical challenges," People quoted Khouth's elder brother Sam Vincent's write-up on the page.

He added, "He had major heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic at the age of 10 to put a shunt in his heart to work more effectively, which was a relatively new procedure at the time so the prognosis of his longevity was always unknown."

In the post, his brother added that Khouth surprised the doctors much time by "defying the odds".

"He kept living and thriving as an actor despite this physical limitations," Vincent added.

For the late actor's funeral, his family is expecting to collect around USD 25,000 and till now they have managed to generate a fair sum of around USD 8,000.

It is also their wish to create an education fund for Khouth's children with the money raised.

The actor died following a cardiac arrest on Tuesday (local time). Khouth's demise was announced by his friend and actor-comedian Peter Kelamis, who tweeted, "On July 23rd, my friend, Gabe [Khouth] appeared to suffer a cardiac arrest while riding his motorcycle and tragically died as a result."

The late actor essayed the role of Tom Clarke on the fantasy drama 'Once Upon a Time', reported Variety.

Apart from the show, Khouth has appeared in a number of films- 'Life Sentence', 'A Series of Unfortunate Events', 'iZombie' and 'Supernatural'.

He was also known for lending his voice in the 'Fruit Ninja' series as Peng and also in 'Beyblade Burst' as Ken.

( With inputs from ANI )