Smoke inhalation caused fire death
The Boone County Medical Examiner's Office has released a preliminary cause of death for the man whose body was found early Tuesday morning. Officials have determined the cause of death was smoke inhalation. Deputy Medical Examiner Eddie Adelstein said although they do not have an official cause of death at the moment, it is clear the victim died from asphyxiation secondary to thermal burns.
“When we find someone who’s been in a fire, we really ask two questions,” Adelstein said. “Was there any evidence that he was hurt before the fire occurred, and the second thing we ask is, was he alive before the fire occurred?”
Adelstein said there is no evidence that the victim had been harmed.
“In his case, there was a lot of evidence that he had breathed in smoke, so we know when the fire occurred, he was alive,” Adelstein said. “We don’t know if he was conscious or not, he may have been unconscious.” Adelstein said they are waiting on a toxicology report to determine if there could have been some drugs involved that could have contributed to the victim’s ability to respond in a fire.
“In this case, it’s clear the cause of death is thermal injury, but still, before we completely find out this cases, that is give our final quote diagnosis, it’s important for us to see if there were other substances that may have played a role.”
The police and fire departments are still waiting on toxicology and DNA tests to release the official cause of death and identity of the victim. The identity of the victim has not been released, but the police and fire departments have a good idea of who they think the victim was and are waiting for the DNA results to positively identify him. Those results are expected to take two to three weeks to come in.
The victim was killed in an outbuilding that caught fire in southern Columbia early Tuesday morning.
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