The sports world was rocked by the sudden death of Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez last month, as the beloved star was killed in a boating accident. Some details of the accident itself had been released, but the autopsy findings were not made public until Saturday.
The autopsy reports for those involved in the crash, including Fernandez, have now been released.
An autopsy report released Saturday states that Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez had taken cocaine and drank alcohol last month shortly before he died in a fatal boat crash.
An autopsy report for Eduardo Rivero states that he too had taken cocaine and consumed alcohol the morning of the crash. Emilio Macias drank alcoholic beverages the day of the crash, but was not under the influence of any illegal drugs, the report said.
The autopsy report was delayed at the request of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. From ABC Local 10:
“When a local news organization, which had submitted a public records request for the information, was informed that it would not be released due to the Fish & Wildlife investigation, the news organization filed a lawsuit against the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner,” Gimenez said. “Since the information was being held at the Fish & Wildlife’s request, the county asked the agency to join in the public records lawsuit as a co-defendant. Fish & Wildlife refused to be a party to the lawsuit.”
The consumption of alcohol is believed to have played a key role in what led to the accident.
According to a search warrant affidavit, an associate medical examiner who performed the autopsies after the crash said that “all three bodies, individually, had a strong odor of alcohol emanating from them.”
The affidavit also states that the boat, “Kaught Looking,” was going at a high rate of speed and that the driver of the vessel was driving with “recklessness” that was “exacerbated by the consumption of alcohol.”
At this point, it is still unclear who was driving the boat at the time of the crash.
