Long suffered severe pulmonary embolisms in July 2010. He wrote, "While running to catch a bus on a New York street, I saw a blinding effusion of white light, amid which several spangled and bell-bottomed figures vaguely resembling ABBA beckoned me to an eternal disco complete with spinning ball. Yanked back from their blandishments by a superior fashion sense, I spent a couple of weeks in intensive care." Long resigned from Human Rights Watch the following month in order to recuperate. In his resignation letter, published in English and Spanish, he recollected that