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The initial results from the autopsies of four people who died when a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily last month revealed they died of suffocation as oxygen ran out on the stricken vessel, Reuters is reporting.
British tech tycoon Mike Lynch owned the yacht. Lynch, his daughter Hannah, the ship’s chef, Canadian Recaldo Thomas, and four guests died when the Bayesian, a British flagged 56-metre superyacht, sank during a sudden, severe storm off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, on Aug. 19.
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The results from autopsies of four of the victims — Morgan Stanley International chairman Jonathan Bloomer, his wife Judy, lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife Neda — have suggested that they died from suffocation due to being trapped on the ship.
The bodies of the passengers, except for the chef, were found in cabins on the left-hand side of the boat. They may have been there in search of bubbles of air, the head of Palermo’s Fire Brigade said last month.
Authorities have called their deaths “dry drowning,” reports CNN. It means they had no water in their lungs, tracheas or stomachs, said a spokesperson for the lawyer of the captain of the Bayesian.
Dry drowning is not a medically accepted condition. It is sometimes used to describe patients whose condition worsened after a drowning rescue or had very little water in the lungs.
They may have consumed all the oxygen before the air pocket turned toxic due to carbon dioxide, according to local media reports. Toxicology results on the seven victims are expected in the coming days.
The autopsies on Thomas and Lynch were expected to be conducted on Friday, with Hannah Lynch due to follow on Saturday, Reuters reports.
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No alcohol or drug tests were carried out on any of the crew members, the prosecutor said in a press conference after all the victims’ bodies had been recovered.
James Cutfield, the ship captain, and crew members Tim Parker Eaton and Matthew Griffiths are now under investigation by the Italian authorities for “multiple manslaughter” and for causing a shipwreck. However, being placed under investigation does not imply guilt or that formal charges will follow. They were allowed to leave the country by the prosecutor in charge of the investigation.
Griffiths was on watch duty on the night of the disaster. He told investigators the crew did everything they could to save the Bayesian passengers, according to reports by Italian news agency Ansa last week.
The sinking has puzzled naval marine experts who say a boat like the Bayesian, built by Italian high-end yacht manufacturer Perini, should have withstood the storm and in any case should not have sunk as quickly as it did.
Lynch and his business partner Stephen Chamberlain, who died after being struck by a car the day the Bayesian sank, had been acquitted of fraud charges in a U.S. court in June 2024, CNN reports. The charges were related to the sale of their company Autonomy to Hewlett Packard, which has said it will not drop its civil lawsuit for $4 billion in damages now being heard in a UK court.
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