Most of the people who died from it had other serious health conditions. Every year many people die from the regular flu but what are the exact numbers?

How many people die from seasonal flu each year in the United States?

The number of seasonal influenza-associated (i.e., seasonal flu-related) deaths varies from year to year because flu seasons often fluctuate in length and severity. CDC estimated that about 36,000 people died of seasonal flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the United States. This figure includes people dying from complications of seasonal flu. This estimate came from a 2003 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which looked at the 1990-91 through the 1998-99 flu seasons [10]. Statistical modeling was used to estimate how many flu-related deaths occurred among people whose underlying cause of death on their death certificate was listed as a respiratory or circulatory disease. During these years, the number of estimated deaths ranged from 17,000 to 52,000.

In 2009, CDC published additional estimates of seasonal flu-related deaths comparing different methods, including the methods used in the 2003 JAMA study. The seasons studied included the 1993-94 through the 2002-03 flu seasons [9]. Results from this study showed that during this time period, 36,171 flu-related deaths occurred per year, on average.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm