Initial autopsies of four of the seven victims who died when a superyacht sank in a storm in Italy last month show they died of “dry drowning,” according to authorities.
The phenomenon, also known as “atypical drowning,” means they had no water in their lungs, tracheas or stomachs, said a spokesperson for the lawyer of the captain of the Bayesian, which went down off the coast of the Sicilian port of Porticello on August 19.
The cause of death of the first four victims suggests that they had found an air bubble in the cabin in which five of the victims’ bodies were discovered, and had consumed all the oxygen before the air pocket turned toxic due to carbon dioxide, according to local media reports.
The autopsies of American lawyer Chris Morvillo, his wife Neda Morvillo, Morgan Stanley banker Jonathan Bloomer and his wife Anne Elizabeth Judith Bloomer were carried out on Wednesday at the Forensic Medicine Institute of the Palermo Polyclinic hospital, officials said.
Autopsies on British tech titan Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter are expected to be carried out on Friday.
No date has been set yet for the autopsy of Recaldo Thomas, the ship’s onboard chef – due to the difficulty reaching his family in Antigua.
All seven victims were scanned for injuries last Saturday, which found none had suffered broken bones or other physical injuries that might have contributed to their deaths.
The prosecutor investigating the case first suggested earlier in August the idea that the victims had been searching for an air pocket.
The autopsies are part of the criminal investigation into the ship’s captain James Cutfield, the ship’s machine engineer Tim Parker Eaton and sailor Matthew Griffith, who was on watch the night of the accident. None of the men is in Italy.
