Dr. G: Medical Examiner - Season 1, Episode 8 - A Cry for Help - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Police discover a dead man lying naked in a pool of blood.
DR. G: He has matted hair, blood everywhere. There aren't too many things that will give you that much blood on the outside of your body.
NARRATOR: A clear cut case of murder? Or is there another, stranger explanation?
Then, an Orlando security guard calls home on his cell phone for help in the last moments of his life.
He was terrified. I could tell by his voice he was scared. NARRATOR: Can Dr. G determine who or what killed him?
And a 31-year-old spends the night partying with his family. The next morning, he doesn't wake up.
[INAUDIBLE] I had to take my two hands and turn him over. And his eyes was open.
And I started screaming. NARRATOR: What could have shut this young man's body down so quickly?
Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries, shocking revelations. These are the everyday cases of "Dr. G, Medical Examiner."
It's 10:00 PM on a warm January evening. Two police officers cruise through one of the city's
roughest neighborhoods. The radio crackles with routine chatter, when suddenly, without warning, the unmistakable sound of gunfire
explodes through the streets. Moments later comes the 911 call. [INAUDIBLE] A body has been found just a few blocks
from the officers' patrol car. When they arrive on the scene, they are confronted with a strange and horrific sight--
a man, naked, face down, in a pool of blood, dead. Here in Florida, where so many flock to rest and play
beneath carefree skies, five people die from gunshots every day. By law, each of these deaths becomes the business
of the Chief Medical Examiner. In Orange County, that person is Dr. Jan Garavaglia,
better known as Dr. G. DR. G: Is there nothing going on today? What's after school?
Just Spanish, right? Tuesdays. All right, so who's picking you up today? NARRATOR: When death strikes without explanation,
she's the one who must unlock the secrets and answer the questions. What claimed this mysterious man's life?
Was this a cold blooded murder? If so, who did it and why? When Dr. G arrives at the morgue at 7:30 AM,
last night's victim is first on her roster. Homicides are always the highest priority at the ME's office.
I got a couple calls on this guy last night, in fact, several. And two police officers were patrolling in this area
and they hear some gunshots. And then they get a call that somebody reported a man down.
And they go to investigate and found this gentleman, nude, face down, with a lot of blood on him.
It didn't sound good. NARRATOR: First Dr. G preps the body to check for the number one suspected culprit, a bullet.
DR. G: Anytime I do suspect a gunshot wound, I would X-ray the body. NARRATOR: Any bullet fragments will show up
as small specks of light, like these seen in the X-ray of another gunshot victim.
Using the film as a roadmap, Dr. G will probe the victim's body for clues to turn over to police ballistic experts.
While she waits on the X-rays, a quick glance over his body reveals a life that was anything but easy.
We really don't know much about him. We don't know his age. We don't know his name.
By looking at him, though, he seems like he's had a rough life. He's got yellow staining of his beard,
consistent with nicotine staining. He's also got nicotine staining of his fingers.
He's got deep, deep furrows in his face. We often see that with heavy cigarette smokers.
Looks just generally unkept, dirt under his nails, disheveled hair. Looks like a transient.
NARRATOR: As soon as the X-ray is ready, Dr. G inspects the image for bullet fragments.
But there is something strange. After a thorough going over, she doesn't see a bullet at all.
The head X-ray shows no bullets. So it's basically negative for a projectile. But that doesn't mean the projectile didn't exit.
And I have heard of pathologists-- forensic pathologists who do autopsies and actually
miss gunshot wounds to the head, especially a small caliber, 22, 25, exits, and you
may not see anything on X-ray. NARRATOR: The only way to know for sure is to open the man's skull, starting with a slit
across the top of the head. Dr. G's assistant frees the scalp, which is then carefully, but forcefully, rolled down over the face.
Using a vibrating saw, the same type used to remove hard casts, he cuts through the skull.
Dr. G then steps in and begins her internal examination. But after a painstaking inspection
of the inside of the skull cavity, there is still no evidence whatsoever of a wound to the head.
No bullet. So we don't see any bullet there. So he definitely doesn't have a bullet in his head.
NARRATOR: Dr. G is back at square one. As the autopsy poses even more questions,
field investigator Dean Smith looks outside the morgue for answers. We've just met with the police on the gentlemen.
They have gained access to his residence. We know who he is now. NARRATOR: The mystery man now has a name--
Charles Simmons. He was a drifter who called a ramshackle, vacant apartment home.
But that's not all they discover. Inside his makeshift residence, police find an important clue for Dr. G--
tissues soaked with blood. One possibility, which is looking more likely, is that it may be something that he's coughing up
blood or vomiting blood from a gastrointestinal tract or from his lungs. NARRATOR: But what condition would cause him
to cough up that much blood? And was that condition fatal? Dr. G goes back to the X-rays, this time looking at the chest.
She notices clusters of small specks on his lungs. She believes the specks are granulomas, tiny clumps
in the lungs, where immune cells have surrounded and encased the bacteria, a possible sign
of severe tuberculosis. What does worry me, though, is that his X-ray of his lung doesn't look good.
He's got some very big hilar lymph nodes. There's some other material in his lungs
that I can't tell at this point. Could be TB. I'm very worried about TB from the lymph nodes.
NARRATOR: Tuberculosis is a dangerous infection of the respiratory system that usually
occurs when a certain type of bacteria is inhaled into the lungs. Left untreated, tuberculosis bacteria
will develop granulomas, which grow in the lungs' oxygen rich air sacs. They destroy tissue as they expand,
eventually causing enough damage to rupture the blood vessels. The presence of tuberculosis could change all presumptions
about the case. But with it comes serious risk. If mishandled, even after the carrier's death,
TB can be a highly contagious, even deadly pathogen. Next on "Dr. G, Medical Examiner",
the Orange County morgue is about to become hazardous territory. We're not going to get TB from him with him just lying here,
but once we open up him, there's a chance we could get TB if he had it. So this is where we're going to go ahead and put our masks on.
NARRATOR: And later, moments before he died, this man made a last desperate call for help.
KIM MORRIS: I kept saying, Glen, what is wrong, and he kept saying, I don't know, I don't know.
NARRATOR: Can Dr. G determine who or what killed him? [MUSIC PLAYING] Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia
is up against a baffling case. Charles Simmons was found naked, dead in a pool of blood,
just after gunshots were heard. Yet after a series of X-rays and a full examination
of the skull, Dr. G has come to the surprise conclusion that he wasn't shot. We are 100% sure now there is absolutely no trauma.
Now we're 100% sure, no bullet wounds. NARRATOR: So what did kill him? Her primary suspect is now tuberculosis,
a deadly and highly contagious bacteria, that if gone untreated can cause its victim to cough
up lethal amounts of blood. The only way to confirm this theory is to dissect the man's lungs.
But by doing so, she puts herself and her entire team at risk. So in this individual, since I am worried about TB,
we're going to go ahead and wear a mask. And we'll wear that mask until I either prove it's not TB
or we get rid of him out of the morgue. NARRATOR: Dr. G makes a y incision across the torso,
cutting from shoulder to sternum, to fully reveal the internal organs and the man's ravaged lungs.
This is not looking good. You can already see the adhesions. I'm palpitating the lungs.
I'm feeling them. And it looks like he's got a possible TB in his lungs. NARRATOR: By examining the outside surface of the man's
lungs, Dr. G's becoming more convinced that he had once suffered from tuberculosis.
But she soon realizes that tuberculosis may be just the tip of the iceberg. By palpating the lungs, you can feel that there's
firmness to the lungs. There should be air in the lungs. But here, there's a firmness, like maybe TB, maybe pneumonia.
But what's worse is on the top of this right lung, at the upper portion, is a large mass, what feels like a mass.
And I'm suspecting that it's cancer. But when we cut into it, we'll be able to see.
Yes, absolutely, that's what it is. It's lung cancer in the upper right portion of his lung.
NARRATOR: And it's one of the worst cases she's ever seen. Like the suspected gunshot wound,
the TB was a red herring, a dormant illness that no longer posed a health risk and wasn't the cause of death.
Cancer is the culprit. It's white, it's firm. It's eroding into the lung tissue.
So he has a cancer in his lung. And that's a really quite large cancer. NARRATOR: In the final analysis, it
was not random urban violence that killed this man, but an unchecked cancer that aided
his lung for years on end. The tumor was in his right long in the upper portion of his right lung, more towards the midline,
in the bronchus, the breathing tube. It starts growing there, inside the bronchus,
on the wall of the bronchus, and then it starts growing out into the lung itself.
NARRATOR: With this discovery, Dr. G can now piece together the last moments of the man's life.
On the night of his death, Charles Simmons begins a violent fit of coughing. Inside his chest, the tumor has dealt its final blow,
pushing through the wall of his lung and opening a hole into his pulmonary artery.
Like a bursting dam, blood begins to flow through the hole, filling his lungs. And the blood could just come straight
out through that tumor, right into the bronchus. NARRATOR: Alone and unable to cry for help,
he suddenly realizes the severity of his condition. I'm sure he was panicked. That would be a very scary way to die.
NARRATOR: Perhaps seeking help, and with no time to dress, he leaves his residence, stumbling
naked onto the street. But it's too late. He's lost pints of blood. By the time he collapses in the parking lot,
there's not enough blood left to carry oxygen to his brain. He is bleeding to death from the inside.
Then somewhere nearby, a gun is fired. DR. G: That night, the police were on patrol
and they heard two gunshots. OFFICER: Shots fired-- WOMAN: [INAUDIBLE] 75, repeat the location.
Then they got a call that somebody called in 911, and that there was a person down about two blocks away.
[SIRENS] NARRATOR: But, of course, he did not have a gunshot wound. And the source of the gunfire heard
that night by patrolling officers was never accounted for. Incredibly, the man who came into the morgue
as a murder victim is leaving as the victim of natural disease. Dr. G believes that the way the man died
provides a poignant glimpse of how he lived. DR. G: Obviously, this is a somewhat of a transient, didn't
take good care of himself. And in that population, we do tend to see horrific things
that these tumors do. They let them go, and go, and go. NARRATOR: By all accounts, Charles Simmons
led a difficult life. But in cracking this complicated case, perhaps Dr. G has done something for the man in death
that others could not do for him while he was alive. DR. G: I have a lot empathy for people who died suddenly
and nobody cares about them. So if nobody is going to care about him, I'm going to care about him, and I'm
going to work just as hard to try to figure out why he died. NARRATOR: In cases like Charles Simmons,
the victim has no family to mourn for them. But more often than not, there are many loved ones left behind who need
answers to difficult questions. It's 732 AM on a Sunday morning in February. And the moment the phone rings, Kim Morris and her daughter,
Kara, know something is wrong. KIM MORRIS: Hello. NARRATOR: Kim's longtime boyfriend, Glen Carter,
should be returning home after working an all-night shift as a security guard. Instead, he's calling from his cell phone,
and Kim can barely understand what he's saying. KIM MORRIS: Glen would never call me 7:30 in the morning.
And when I picked it up, I thought it was somebody playing a joke. I could not understand this person, what they were saying.
His voice was so slurred and his words were so drawn out. That's why I kept saying, who is this?
And that's when he told me, he says, it's Glen. NARRATOR: Glen Carter, 853 53 is a 25 year veteran police
officer from Michigan. Only three years earlier, after retiring from the police force,
he relocated to Orlando, Florida with his girlfriend, Kim, and their 12-year-old daughter, Kara.
There, he planned to pursue his dream job, as a security guard at a local Orlando theme park.
KIM MORRIS: To Glen, it was never work. I mean, that's all he talked, that's all he lived,
it's all he breathed. He loved it. NARRATOR: Now however, Glen is obviously in trouble.
Still hanging on the phone with Kim, he seems to be growing increasingly confused.
KIM MORRIS: I kept saying, Glen, what is wrong? And he kept saying, I don't know, I don't know.
NARRATOR: Kim pleads with Glenn to tell her where he is. Finally, he says something she can understand.
KIM MORRIS: He told me, he said, at work. And I yelled at him to call 911. And he kept telling me he couldn't.
He couldn't, he couldn't. NARRATOR: Then the agonizing 17 minute phone call abruptly ends.
The line goes dead. KIM MORRIS: I tried calling them over, and over, and over, and over, and over.
NARRATOR: Kim is beside herself. Has Glen been injured? Fallen victim to a violent crime?
Or perhaps he's become desperately ill. Well, at that point I was scared. NARRATOR: Unable to reach Glen on his cell phone,
Kim at once calls his job and begs his co-workers to look for him there. KIM MORRIS: I said something's horribly wrong,
you need to find him now. NARRATOR: Then she dials 911. As friends and co-workers search for Glen
in and around the theme park, the Orange County Sheriff's Office tracks the 23 miles of roadway between Glen's
home and his job. But no one can find him. KIM MORRIS: I talked to 911 about 20 times.
I talked to his work about 20 times. And I tried calling him over, and over, and over, and over, and over.
NARRATOR: Then finally, nearly two hours later, one of Glen's co-workers finds him in the middle of the theme
park's 162 acre parking lot. He is unconscious and not breathing. KIM MORRIS: He yanked the door open
and started CPR on him until the ambulance arrived. NARRATOR: But the ambulance is too late.
Glen Carter is dead. And for Glen's girlfriend and family, there are only difficult questions.
What or who killed him? And more distressing, if help had arrived sooner, could Glen Carter have been saved?
KIM MORRIS: I wanted to know what he died from, of course. And could it have been prevented, you know,
was he suffering? DR. G: We have a 54-year-old man who works as a security guard.
He calls his girlfriend, and says, something about that he's in trouble. She calls a friend of his that she knows works there.
And he goes out and finds his car in the parking lot and him pretty much dead inside.
NARRATOR: Most deaths that are reported to the Orange County morgue do not require autopsies.
After reviewing medical history and the circumstances of death, approximately 80% of the cases do not need an autopsy
to determine cause of death. DR. G: We look at the circumstances of death. We look at the age.
We look at natural disease. If you're 85 years old, and just in bed, and there's no evidence of foul play, we don't have to autopsy.
NARRATOR: On first blush, Glen Carter's may be one such case. His medical records show that he suffered
from acute coronary artery disease and hypertension, both natural diseases that could have led to his death.
That's by far the thing we see most at the medical examiner's office, a sudden death
associated with heart. NARRATOR: But in Glen's case, one odd piece of information
from the field report grabs Dr. G's attention, suggesting that his death might not have
been caused by heart failure-- the 17 minute phone call. DR. G: Usually, when we see the sudden deaths from heart,
they go pretty fast and don't have a lot of time to call. It didn't quite sound right to me.
NARRATOR: Also troubling Dr. G is the family's feeling of culpability that they could
have done more to save Glen. DR. G: She was very worried. I think that needed to be put to rest,
if that was something that could have happened or not. Because she would always be thinking about that.
NARRATOR: Then too, is the possibility that Glen was the victim of a crime. In Dr. G's estimation, the only way
to get to the bottom of Glen Carter's unexpected death is to perform a full autopsy.
She starts with a thorough examination of the outside of the body. They looks like little abrasions,
or some skin slippage. NARRATOR: During the external exam, Dr. G documents the physical traits of the body.
Dr. G also searches for any external clues on the body that might indicate a cause
of death, including foul play. As a security guard, Glen served as the front line
for any trouble in the theme park. Perhaps his slurred speech and disorientation are
symptoms of a blow to the head. Maybe something bumped him on the back of the head.
There's always that possibility. And you always keep an open mind that there's maybe something else going on.
NARRATOR: Externally, though, it is sometimes difficult to detect trauma, especially a cranial injury.
This will have to wait until later in the autopsy. What is obvious during the external exam,
however, is evidence of Glen's coronary artery disease. DR. G: We've got the midline scar
associated with his previous heart surgery. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the scars
or bypass on his chest, you know a big scar going right down your chest, and scar going up your leg,
where they take the graph from to sew into your heart. So that was clear. NARRATOR: But not much else is.
The external exam has yielded few clues as to what happened to Glen Carter. At this point, Dr. G cannot rule out anything.
But she remains undeterred. We're going to figure out why he died and could somebody have saved him.
NARRATOR: Next on "Dr. G, Medical Examiner." Dr. G leaves no stone unturned in the search
for what killed Glen Carter. DR. G: There's always a suspicion of foul play, because we don't know what's going on on the other end
of the phone. We just know something was wrong. NARRATOR: And later, a seemingly healthy young man
inexplicably dies in his sleep. What took Richard's life? [MUSIC PLAYING] After a desperate 17 minute call to his family for help,
Glen Carter was found dead inside his car in the parking lot of an Orlando theme park.
Glen's history of heart problems and bypass surgery points to a deadly heart attack.
But one nagging issue keeps raising questions for Dr. G. DR. G: He's calling up, complaining that there's
something not right, not usually what we see with sudden death from heart disease.
NARRATOR: Glen's family continues to wonder whether he could have survived had help only arrived sooner.
Dr. G hopes to find answers to their question by examining Glen internally. First up is his heart.
And Dr. G is surprised by what she finds. His coronary artery disease is dangerously advanced.
I don't see any area for the blood to get through. It's completely occluded. NARRATOR: Despite her lingering reservations,
Dr. G is now wondering if heart failure is the cause of Glen's death as some of the outward evidence
suggests. DR. G: Well, the disease progressed. He'd had the surgery nine years ago
and the disease just progressed. NARRATOR: In many cases, bypass surgery results in a normal, functioning heart for many years.
But sometimes the lasting effects are much briefer. Well in Glen's situation, the plaque was
built up in the blood vessels. And it was building up in the bypass grafts. And so it was still--
his heart wasn't getting enough blood. That's not good. NARRATOR: Inside Glen's artery, plaque had accumulated.
When the blockage interfered with blood flow, his body grew a network of smaller blood vessels
to feed the starved tissue. This process is known as angiogenesis. In Glen's heart, angiogenesis was well underway.
A lot of smaller, what we call collaterals, had to have been formed. Because so many of the other ones were completely clogged.
NARRATOR: Despite the extra collateral blood flow from the angiogenesis, Dr. G can see
that Glen's heart was still not receiving sufficient blood supply. She finds many areas of dead or dying tissue in the muscle.
Some are several months old, some more recent. I can see that he's got a little listing
depressed area here. This is at least two months old. He's got a small area here that's several weeks old
that it hadn't gotten enough blood and was dying. So there's little parts of his heart that are dying.
NARRATOR: This means that apparently Glen had been suffering from imperceptible yet damaging
heart attacks for some time. There is a very high percentage-- some people say up to 25, 20%, some people say 10%--
of heart attacks, you just don't feel them. NARRATOR: Then when Dr. G weighs Glen's heart,
she finds another problem. It's greatly enlarged, a harmful effect of hypertension.
DR. G: You could see that he had high blood pressure. His heart was enlarged, not from the coronary artery disease,
but enlarged from hypertension. NARRATOR: Contrary to her initial hunch, the evidence so far is leaning strongly toward a heart attack.
So the heart, after seeing it, thought, boy, that's a good candidate for sudden death.
NARRATOR: But how can Dr. G be sure? When a person dies within a few minutes of a fatal heart
attack, the body doesn't have enough time to produce any changes to the heart muscle
that you can see with your eyes or even a microscope. Changes will only be visible on someone
who has survived at least four to six hours after the coronary event. So oftentimes, when people die of a heart attack
and it's very sudden, I don't see any heart damage whatsoever. NARRATOR: Glen's case is no different.
His heart shows no signs of a fatal attack. Determining whether or not he died of heart disease
will require one thing-- ruling out everything else. DR. G: We'll make sure-- we'll make sure there's nothing else going on.
I wanted to make sure that autopsy was done I wanted to see if something trump the heart.
The brain, that's all I had left. OK, so we're ready to-- Arden's ready to go ahead and reflect the scalp
and we'll look at that. And we do we have all the weights written down? Thank you.
NARRATOR: Once the scalp is reflected, or peeled back, and the skull is opened, Dr. G's first task
is to determine whether or not Glen could have died from trauma to his head. DR. G: So that's all we reflected.
Nothing, no bruises on the inside. NARRATOR: Not only is there no trauma, but Glen's brain looks perfectly normal for a 53-year-old man.
His brain looks fine so far. We see the top the hemispheres of the brain. They look pretty good.
Yeah that's when I was getting a little disappointed. I was a little disappointed, because I really
thought it was the brain. NARRATOR: But as Dr. G removes the brain from the skull cavity, she finally uncovers
the first abnormality-- coagulated blood. I could see that it wasn't quite right.
It was swollen, and then you could see a little bit of blood coming out. NARRATOR: Leaking blood, such as this, is never a good sign.
It means Glen suffered some sort of stroke. And as she traces the blood to the base of the brain,
Dr. G can see right away what killed Glen Carter without a doubt. He's got a Pontine hemorrhage.
Yeah. NARRATOR: The pons is a part of the brain stem, located deep within the base of the brain.
Though it is a small area, about the size of a walnut, it serves as a vital conduit between the brain
and the spinal cord. Any injury to the pons can be devastating. Let me make sure I check--
NARRATOR: Dr. G's original hunch was correct after all, Glen's heart didn't kill him.
It was a hemorrhagic stroke in his brain, most likely caused by his high blood pressure.
Based on her findings, Dr. G can now reveal what happened to Glen Carter as he left work at the Orlando theme park that Sunday morning.
According to Dr. G, Glen Carter likely suffered from high blood pressure without treatment for many years.
Over time, this caused the walls of the small blood vessels within the vital area of the pons to weaken and bulge.
As Glenn walks to his car after work that morning, it is likely that one of the weakened vessels
begins to bleed. DR. G: I think it started out slow. He's not feeling well. He's sensing something's wrong, and then his speech
starts getting slurred. NARRATOR: Once in his car, he calls his girlfriend, Kim.
KIM MORRIS: He kept saying I love you. I kept saying, Glen, Glen. I could hear him kind of breathing.
DR. G: I think he knew. I think he knew that he was probably dying. That's why he's telling her he loves her.
NARRATOR: By this point, Glen might not be able to see or control the fine motor
movements in his hands and fingers needed to call 911. The hemorrhage begins to affect his speech and brain function.
Within minutes, as the bleeding in the pons begins to overwhelm Glen's brain, he loses consciousness.
His respiratory system fails. His heart ceases to beat, and he dies. Based on Dr. G's findings, Glen's family
now knows that they could not have saved him had help arrived sooner. A Pontine hemorrhage is almost always fatal.
Even if he'd had medical attention right away, there was nothing you could have done for him.
NARRATOR: Glenn's death also illustrates how high blood pressure can be a silent killer.
You can high blood for years and never know it, because you don't have any symptoms.
You don't have any symptoms till it starts causing problems with your heart, or you get a huge bleed in your brain,
or you destroy your kidneys. from it. I still grieve. I mean, what are you going to do?
I think of Glen every day. There's nothing that doesn't happen in my home we don't think about him, every day, every day.
NARRATOR: Next on "Dr. G, Medical Examiner," a family vacation ends in tragedy. I said no, hold on, he's been dead all ready, he's been--
this already happened. NARRATOR: Was this young woman's brother harboring a deadly secret?
[MUSIC PLAYING] It's the final day of 31-year-old Richard DeSoto's vacation to Orlando, where he and his brother, Alex,
are visiting their sister, Michelle. We'll fool around like we were little kids, play
around, we'll pillow fight. We'll play video games together. NARRATOR: Although Richard is normal in most respects,
he suffers from a mysterious long term medical condition affecting over 2 million Americans-- epilepsy.
He lost oxygen when he was born. When he was about 10 years old, he got his first seizure.
He would stay in bed the whole day that they got a seizure. NARRATOR: This unpredictable condition
has been an obstacle for Richard throughout his life. He was afraid to do anything, because he thought he
was going to catch a seizure. NARRATOR: Richard, the father of a young child, does not work and lives on disability.
According to his siblings, he has a difficult time functioning outside the loving support
structure of his family. He was-- he was so at peace. He was so easygoing. He was so happy.
I could see the joy in his face. He was so kind. He was at ease. NARRATOR: As the final hours of his vacation wind down,
Richard spends a carefree evening partying. He made me laugh so much, I [INAUDIBLE] my stomach.
I got a cramp. He was so happy. NARRATOR: Before turning in for the night, he calls his mother back in New York.
He says mom I'll be home on Tuesday. And I says, OK, honey, I'm happy that you're coming home,
I really miss you. NARRATOR: Those are the last words Carmen will ever hear her son speak.
It's 7:00 AM the next morning when Michelle, still half asleep, hears her brother in the shower.
But when she gets up a few hours later, she senses that something isn't right. MICHELLE: I opened the door, he was face down,
his head was in the pillow. Richard get up. It's time to [INAUDIBLE] NARRATOR: Michelle desperately tries to wake him.
I started poking him. And it was like a solid-- it was no response, no reaction, nothing.
So I knew something was wrong. NARRATOR: Frantic, Michelle dials 911. MICHELLE: I was screaming, oh, my god.
Oh, my god. She said, OK, ma'am, I want you to hold his nose and I want you to apply pressure.
He released the air back to me. There was a funny smell. So I said, oh, no, hold on, he's been dead already.
He's been-- this already happened. We got a code. NARRATOR: EMS personnel arrive at 10:15 AM.
They immediately confirm what Michelle already knows. What's the monitor show? NARRATOR: Her beloved brother is dead.
OK, let's go ahead and call him. Investigations, Bill. NARRATOR: As with many sudden deaths in Orange County,
Dr. G's field investigators are called to the scene. Once at the house, they join police
who are conducting a search of the bedroom where Richard died. There, police make a disturbing discovery--
a trace of cocaine is found in the night table drawer. Could cocaine have contributed to Richard's death?
His family claims the only illicit drug Richard used was marijuana. He did, he smoked all his life, really.
He started smoking since he was a teenager. NARRATOR: But cocaine isn't the only drug
police find in Richard's room. On the nightstand next to his body, they discover a bottle of a prescription drug used
to prevent the seizures that had plagued Richard all of his life. Epilepsy sufferers can experience
uncontrolled convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and sometimes loss of consciousness.
Regular medication can often effectively control seizures. Despite the discovery of drugs, and the fact that Richard has
suffered from epileptic seizures all his life, no one can tell what killed the young man.
That, as always, is a task that falls to Dr. G. [MUSIC PLAYING] At the morgue, Dr. G begins the external exam.
Right away, she notices something on Richard's ear, a marijuana leaf earring. DR. G: We weren't sure if cocaine
was going to be involved. We knew he'd smoked marijuana, so we didn't know really
if he was into drugs or not. NARRATOR: In the autopsies preliminary stage, drugs become a prime suspect, because epilepsy,
despite its sometimes violent symptoms, is rarely, if ever, fatal. A very low percentage of people who have seizures
will die from a seizure. It's probably less than 1%. NARRATOR: No one really knows what
causes most forms of epilepsy. What is known is that it is centered in the central nervous system, specifically the brain.
The human brain contains 100 billion nerve cells, each of which normally fires electrical impulses
about 80 times a second. However, during an epileptic seizure, nerve cells fire an astounding 500 times per second.
This causes a violent electrical storm in the brain, which in turn, can set off muscle spasms and convulsions.
Sufferers may also experience strange tastes and hear odd sounds. But because epilepsy is rarely a killer,
Dr. G's most likely culprit remains drugs. She takes samples of blood, urine, and eye fluid
for the toxicology laboratory. They will determine exactly which drugs were in his system
when he died. DR. G: Again, this guy will be full tox, for microscopics. NARRATOR: She will especially be on the lookout
for traces of cocaine. Cocaine, a volatile stimulant, accelerates heart rate, raises blood pressure, and can wreak
havoc in epilepsy's homebase, the central nervous system. Certainly, somebody who has seizure activity
doesn't want to take a stimulant drug, like cocaine or methamphetamine. That's just pouring gasoline.
NARRATOR: Next, on "Dr. G, Medical Examiner"-- Really, I thought maybe he had done drugs.
NARRATOR: Did Richard have a drug problem that he kept hidden from his family? [MUSIC PLAYING]
31-year-old Richard DeSoto, who suffered from violent epileptic seizures most of his life,
is discovered dead, in bed. Dr. G's goal, determine if Richard died of a drug overdose, an epileptic seizure, or possibly
a combination of the two. There's still no definite lead as to why this young man died.
Meanwhile, the people most in need of answers remain haunted by disturbing questions.
I'm thinking maybe somebody suffocated him. So many things went through my head.
Really, I thought maybe he had done drugs. That's fine, just so it doesn't fall on you, Arden.
NARRATOR: As she waits for the results of the toxicology report, Dr. G begins inspecting
Richard's internal organs. Though a bit large for his age, the heart checks out OK.
But what does seem suspicious is the condition of Richard's lungs. They're very congested.
They've got somebody edema to them. NARRATOR: Dr. G can see right away that his alveoli,
the elastic air sacs contained in the lungs, have filled with fluid and have edema or swelling.
This condition could have prevented Richard's lungs from absorbing oxygen and led to suffocation.
But does this new evidence point to a drug overdose or epileptic seizure? DR. G: We see that both with people
who die after a seizure and people who die from overdoses. So it's very non-specific.
NARRATOR: After gaining no definitive evidence from the torso, Dr. G moves up to Richard's head.
Immediately, she observes another clue, this time in Richard's mouth. Oh, my gosh, now that's one bad tongue bite.
See, it's kind of raw there. That goes along with a seizure. NARRATOR: It appears to Dr. G that Richard
did suffer a seizure in the hours before he died. But his tongue also reveals numerous old bite wounds.
Clearly, he survived those. What was different this time? Even though epileptic seizures are rarely fatal,
knowing that Richard had a seizure so close to the time of his death raises a new possibility.
Could Richard have been the victim of a rare phenomena called SUDEP-- Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy?
Typically, SUDEP kills people who are young or middle aged like Richard. They are usually found lying face down the way Richard was.
Experts have no idea what specifically causes SUDEP victims to die so suddenly. And only between 1% and 2% of people with epilepsy
will ever succumb to it. All we know is that we have a subset of seizure patients
where they are usually known seizures, and they die without any other cause, often with a bitten tongue.
NARRATOR: But despite Dr. G's findings, by the end of the physical autopsy, there are still many questions left unanswered.
The final piece of the puzzle can only come from the toxicology report. When the toxicology report finally arrives,
it clearly shows what drugs are in Richard's system. But it's what Dr. G doesn't find that helps put the finishing
touches on this unusual case. He didn't have evidence of death from any kind of illicit drug or prescription drugs.
NARRATOR: There was absolutely no trace of cocaine in Richard's blood. In fact, with the exception of a little marijuana,
there was no trace of any drugs in Richard's system. And that includes the medication he took to manage his seizures.
The seizure medication is supposed to, in a way, calm the electrical activity of the brain
so it won't go off on its own. He didn't have any seizure medication in his system.
He should have. NARRATOR: Tragically the drugs, only feet from his bed, were the key to keeping Richard's
seizures under control. The medication would made him drowsy and dizzy. And he said that he would feel off
balance all the time, all day long, throughout the day. So he said he was frustrated with that.
So I think that was one of the reasons why he stopped. NARRATOR: Having thoroughly investigated
all the possibilities, it's now obvious that illegal drugs had nothing to do with Richard's death.
And the trace amount of cocaine found on his dresser may never be accounted for.
Dr. G can now tell what happened to Richard on his final morning. Sometime before 10:00 AM, Richard's neurons
begin to fire abnormally, causing a violent electrical storm in his brain. With no anti seizure medication in his system,
the most powerful seizure he has ever experienced overcomes his body. He loses control of his movements and bodily functions
and bites his tongue nearly in half. He may have been unable to breathe. Typically a temporary condition during a seizure,
but this time his breathing might not have returned. Other people feel that it's probably not the seizure itself
that's killing them. It's a cardiac arrhythmia that these people tend to have problems.
NARRATOR: Possibly, the part of his brain that controls his heartbeat is adversely affected,
prompting his heart to beat wildly. The irregular heartbeat then likely causes Richard's heart
to shut down entirely. During his entire life, Richard had always recovered from epileptic seizures.
But this one proves fatal. He has a low level, in fact no level of Dilantin in his system, his anti seizure medication.
He has a big bite mark to his tongue. He's got some fluid in his lungs. Everything's consistent with a seizure
and no other cause of death was found. Thank god that the tox report says that there
was no sign of cocaine. NARRATOR: Still, Richard's death is a tragedy that can serve as a valuable lesson
for anyone dependent on a drug therapy plan. I feel like he did it to himself and he hurt me so much, that whoever at this point
has the same problem that he has should take his medication and take it more seriously.
And if you just take your seizure medication, and make sure that you tell your doctor when you--
don't stop it on your own. Don't stop it abruptly. You shouldn't have any problem.
[MUSIC PLAYING]

Police patrolling the night streets hear gunshots and head to the scene. They find a nude middle-aged man in parking lot lying face down in a puddle of blood.

A Florida medical examiner takes viewers through puzzling cases while explaining procedures and conclusions.

Brief Summary

Dr. G investigates three deaths: a transient's cancer, a security guard's stroke, and an epileptic's fatal seizure due to missed medication.

Key points

A Mysterious Death. Police discover a naked man dead in a pool of blood, raising questions of murder.
Uncovering the Truth. Dr. G investigates the cause of death, suspecting tuberculosis and cancer.
The Call for Help. A security guard makes a desperate call to his girlfriend, revealing his distress.
Glen's Mysterious Death. Dr. G investigates the cause of Glen's sudden death, uncovering advanced heart disease.
The Fatal Stroke. Dr. G discovers that Glen suffered a Pontine hemorrhage, leading to his death.
Richard's Sudden Death. Richard is found dead in bed, prompting an investigation into potential drug involvement.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What could have shut this young man's body down so quickly?

NARRATOR questioning the cause of death

0:59WatchMay 18, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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