07x02 - Hidden K*llers

[bunniefuu]

[music playing]

[music playing]

NARRATOR When a teenage boy goes to the hospital

with back pain and dies less than hours later,

his family is shocked.

It was like a whirlwind.

We-- I mean, after everything we were in a daze

like, what just happened?

NARRATOR Now it's up to Dr. G to explain his sudden death.

I am sure the family is devastated,

and I am sure the family wants answers.

And I'm hoping to give them some.

NARRATOR Then--

Leesa!

NARRATOR --when a woman finds her sister dead on the couch,

all signs point to foul play.

DR. G Her door's unlocked.

She's covered with blood.

That's suspicious at face value.

NARRATOR And police are counting on Dr. G

to find proof of m*rder.

We have to treat it as a homicide

till we prove otherwise.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Altered lives, baffling medical mysteries,

shocking revelations--

these are the everyday cases of Dr. G medical examiner.

BRIAN MACHULSKI I'm kind of divided about my job.

The first thing I always remember

is that I'm here because of other people's tragedy.

On the other hand, I find my job very fascinating.

And I never get bored because every day coming in here

is an adventure because you never know what's waiting

or what's in store.

NARRATOR And today, a case comes into the morgue that puts

Dr. G and her team to the test.

Sometimes it's the autopsy that's so fascinating.

In this case, it's really what happened after the autopsy.

This has bigger implications than for just this family.

[music playing]

NARRATOR It's AM on Monday, September , .

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

NARRATOR And the District Nine morgue in Orlando, Florida,

has just received a body from a nearby hospital.

We have an -year-old African-American

male that just last Friday was a linebacker for his high school.

And now he's dead.

Trained six days a week, no smoking, no drinking.

The hospital calls us up because it

was such a sudden death.

They don't know what's wrong with him.

So of course we accepted the case.

[music playing]

DR. G Let's see.

NARRATOR Dr. G begins by reading through the case

file of -year-old Alonzo Smith, a high school senior

and star football player.

KIMBERLY SMITH He was a pretty good kid,

didn't really get in trouble.

He was healthy, happy, no complaints.

ALONZO SMITH SR. He was looking forward to going

to college on scholarship.

A lot of doors were opening.

NARRATOR Reading through the investigator's report,

Dr. G hones in on the details of Alonzo's

sudden and tragic death.

DR. G He went to practice on Thursday

but didn't show up on Friday.

He called in sick to school, couldn't

go to the football game.

Mom.

KIMBERLY SMITH Alonzo said his back was bothering him.

I told him to stay home and see if the back pain would ease up.

[sighs]

NARRATOR But the pain doesn't ease up.

In fact, it soon becomes so severe

that Alonzo's mother decides to take

him into the emergency room.

DR. G They take an X-ray, but they don't really see

any reason for his back pain.

They decide it's a back spasm, so they

give him a sh*t of an anti-inflammatory drug

and goes home to rest.

NARRATOR But within just a few hours,

Alonzo develops some alarming new symptoms.

DR. G He's got a rash.

He's having difficulty breathing.

His mom's worried, so she takes him back to the emergency room.

They realize he's got a fever now,

and they're working him up for a possible infection.

NARRATOR ER doctors now believe that whatever

infection Alonzo contracted has progressed

into full-blown sepsis.

Sepsis is basically your body responding to severe infection.

That sets off a cascade of chemicals.

That starts causing your white blood cells to go up,

your respiratory rate to go up.

Your blood pressure starts going down,
[ … ]

and you start having organ failure.

[suspenseful music]

They put him in the ICU, but he has a rapid downhill course.

[alarm]

NARRATOR To the entire family's shock, less than hours

after his first symptom, the unthinkable happens.

KIMBERLY SMITH We were in the waiting room,

and they called a code blue.

They never said the room number.

They never said a name.

In my heart, I knew it was Alonzo.

DR. G There were not able to save him.

He codes and dies.

If you can imagine, you know, the family is shocked.

In less than a couple-day period,

they have a perfectly healthy football player to a dead son.

And nobody can give them an answer.

It's our job, then, to figure out what happened.

They don't have a diagnosis.

Let's see what they did to him.

NARRATOR Dr. G scours the medical reports

from the hospital searching for any clues

that might provide insight into the teenager's

mysterious death.

DR. G I agree with his clinicians.

It looks like an infection, but we don't know

for sure what the infection is.

NARRATOR Given Alonzo's symptoms of high fever

and shortness of breath, the ER doctors

believe he may have developed pneumonia, a potentially

deadly infection of the lungs.

They've done blood cultures.

They've done a workup.

But nothing came back positive yet.

It could also be meningitis, an infection of his brain linings.

NARRATOR Meningococcal meningitis

is a notoriously lethal and contagious

infection, commonly striking young people

around Alonzo's age.

DR. G That would have public-health

implications for the people who had any contact with him.

Is it something that's going to be a public-health risk,

or is it not?

NARRATOR But she must also consider

that despite Alonzo's symptoms, he may have d*ed

of something else altogether.

DR. G Maybe he had a pseudosepsis syndrome-- looks

like sepsis, but it isn't.

NARRATOR One condition that can mimic the symptoms of sepsis

is massive blood loss.

With Alonzo's rigorous football schedule,

it's possible he unknowingly suffered an injury that caused

a serious internal bleed.

DR. G Maybe he's ruptured a spleen.

It's maybe an injury to his pancreas.

But although it could be, I doubt it.

We'll see when we get in there.

I have to look at everything.

That's what I do with an autopsy.

OK.

You know, weird things happen.

Weird things come through my office,

and that's why I do a complete autopsy.

Okeydokey, let's go for it.

NARRATOR As always, Dr. G begins the autopsy

with an external exam.

And it doesn't take long to zero in

on her first unmistakable clue.

I can still see his rash.

It was on his face, and his shoulders, his neck,

even on his extremities and chest.

It's a red almost sunburn type of a rash.

I'd never really seen a rash quite like this.

All right.

NARRATOR She documents the unusual rash

and continues searching his body for anything

that might shed light on the -year-old's mysterious death.

The only thing I found was an abrasion,

abrasion near his elbow.

That's a very non-specific finding.

I mean, football players, they're

constantly hitting each other, and they braid the skin.

Yeah, I think that's it.

So the external didn't really give

me a lot more clues than I had.

We need to look internally.

NARRATOR Meanwhile, just a few miles away,

Alonzo's family members are beside themselves

with grief and confusion.

Their only hope now is for Dr. G to provide

some much needed answers.

It's really, really, really devastating.

Never in my wildest dream I thought he was going to die.

NARRATOR And for Dr. G, this case

hits especially close to home.

I had this-- a son almost the exact same age.

And so you always run through your mind

that this could be your son.

But I have tragedies every day come through my morgue.

And although I can relate to this mom,
[ … ]

my job is to get the answers for them.

[music playing]

[music playing]

OK.

NARRATOR Dr. G is on the hunt for the cause of death

in the mysterious case of Alonzo Smith,

a well-liked and talented -year-old

from Kissimmee, Florida.

KIMBERLY SMITH It was like a whirlwind.

We-- I mean, after everything, we were in a daze

like, what just happened?

DR. G I am sure the family is devastated,

and I'm sure the family wants answers,

and I'm hoping to give them some.

NARRATOR At this point, Dr. G suspects

that Alonso may have fallen victim to a deadly infection.

DR. G If it truly is something infectious

and he d*ed in such a fast manner,

this might have public-health implications.

So I need to look internally and see what's there.

I think we better-- why don't we put masks on since I

don't know why he's d*ed from?

NARRATOR But before Dr. G begins, she and her staff

must protect themselves.

Alonzo's body, even postmortem, might be contagious.

You ready?

When I start, I open up his head.

I remove his scalp.

I open up his calvarium to look at his brain

to look for meningitis.

But his meninges didn't have that cloudy kind

of [inaudible] look.

He doesn't look infected.

They looked clear, but I've been fooled before.

We're not going to take any chances.

We'll take a microbe and a culture.

I will still culture it because it may show evidence

of meningococcal meningitis.

But at this point, eh, its chances are no.

That should be enough.

NARRATOR Still no closer to a cause of death,

Dr. G has no choice but to dig deeper inside Alonzo's

body for answers.

Is there anything that could tell me

what's going on with this guy?

Could you get me a sterile scalpel?

NARRATOR Dr. G opens the body with a standard Y incision.

Her first step will be to check for a fatal internal bleed.

Blood loss can look like a pseudosepsis.

Something that was mimicking an infection.

So I've opened up his body cavity,

but I don't see blood accumulation.

Nothing abnormal.

It really sounds like he's got a very

rapidly developing infection.

The question is, where did it start?

NARRATOR Doctors in the hospital

believe that Alonzo may have contracted pneumonia.

So Dr. G's next stop is the lungs.

We remove his lungs.

I weigh the lungs.

They're incredibly heavy.

They're incredibly dense.

Heavy lungs.

I'm thinking maybe it is a pneumonia.

NARRATOR Carefully, she slices through the tissue

searching for characteristic inflammation, fluid, or pus.

DR. G When I sectioned his lungs, though,

it does not look like an ammonia.

It looks good unfortunately.

All that fluid that's built up in the lungs,

it was really a result of that sepsis.

NARRATOR All signs still point to an infection,

but Dr. G can't be certain without the results

from toxicology.

DR. G Hopefully by the end of the autopsy,

we'll have some results from the blood cultures

they took at the hospital.

NARRATOR As she nears the end of the internal exam,

Dr. G is still puzzled as to what could

have k*lled Alonzo so suddenly.

But based on his symptoms of back pain,

there's still one more place she needs to look.

We're going to have to flip him.

I'm going to be looking at his back.

Is there an infection going on there?

I don't see anything.

But his muscles look normal.

I don't see a cause for the infection--

nothing.

Huh.

I really need to know what those blood cultures are showing.

NARRATOR Unfortunately, the lingering uncertainty

continues to weigh on the minds of Alonzo's friends and family.

Your mind can't be--

you know, you just can't rest.

We were still grieving.

DR. G It's difficult for a family to grasp sudden death

when they don't know what caused it.

At least you got to put your mind around what happened.
[ … ]

[music playing]

NARRATOR Dr. G has completed the autopsy

on -year-old Alonzo Smith, but so far she's

found nothing to conclusively explain the baffling

death to his family.

You know, dealing with families,

I see it as actually the best part of my job,

because what an autopsy is ultimately for is the living.

Now I can take this thing off.

Now, it could be an infection.

That's probably the most likely explanation,

but we don't really know what's going on with him.

I'll have to ask my infectious disease consultant.

NARRATOR But the specialist Dr. G

turns to is not your ordinary morgue consultant.

Oh, I've got a good infectious disease case for you.

I have a resident in-house infectious disease consultant.

And when I mean in-house, I mean in-house.

I mean, he lives with me--

my husband.

This is an interesting case.

MARK WALLACE This was a very interesting case

to work together with Dr. G. We talked about how

this guy had d*ed of sepsis, and it

wasn't clear how that happened.

All right.

I'm hoping that the blood cultures are going to give me

the type of bug it is so I can at least

kind of help the family understand what's happened.

I immediately call the hospital to see if we

have any blood culture results.

They put me to the microbe lab.

And sure enough, we have a result. Turn the light off.

NARRATOR With these findings in hand,

Dr. G is finally able to piece together

exactly what happened to Alonzo Smith in the days

leading up to his untimely death.

DR. G This does have public-health implications.

I'm a little bit concerned.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Sometime in September ,

Alonzo is roughing it up at football practice

when he gets a small scrape on his left elbow.

It is then that Dr. G believes that a deadly bacterium finds

its way into the opening in his skin.

DR. G Little cuts allow that bacteria to go in.

That's a port of entry.

NARRATOR The hospital cultures revealed that the bacterium is

community-acquired methicillin resistant Staphylococcus

aureus, or MRSA.

MRSA is just Staph aureus, this common bacteria that

causes a lot of infections, which

is resistant to a common family of antibiotics.

NARRATOR On Friday, September ,

the MRSA infection takes hold inside Alonzo's body,

and he calls out sick from school.

DR. G Probably what's happened is, he did hurt his muscle.

He strained his muscle in his back.

And the bacteria settled there when it went through his blood,

causing a backache.

NARRATOR If the infection was detected early enough,

it could have been treated with a special kind of antibiotic.

But unfortunately for Alonzo, no clear evidence of an infection

is found during his first visit to the ER.

DR. G He is a football player, and he has a back pain.

He really wasn't giving any symptoms of being sick.

NARRATOR By the next morning, the infection

has spread to his bloodstream, triggering a life-threatening

condition called sepsis.

That sets off a cascade of chemicals.

That rash, those are from toxins being

produced by that bacteria.

The increased respiratory rate, that's from fluid

leaking out into his lungs.

His heart rate goes up.

His temperature goes up.

NARRATOR By the time he's readmitted to the hospital,

the infection is too far advanced,

and Alonzo takes a dramatic turn for the worse.

He quickly went downhill.

[alarm]

NARRATOR In the ICU, the -year-old

struggles to hang on.

But his heartbeat slows and eventually stops.

DR. G They try to get it back, but it's too late.

NARRATOR Finally, Dr. G is able to share her findings

with Alonzo's parents.

ALONZO SMITH SR. She gave us the only answers we have.

That's the only piece we had, really.

Yeah.

DR. G You know, I think they were appreciative of an answer,

but the family was very upset.

They didn't understand, how could

their son have gotten this?

He probably picked it up working out in the gym.

Once you have a portal of entry, you

can pick it up from surfaces.

You can pick it up from somebody that has it on their hands.

About % to % of the people on the planet

are colonized with Staph aureus.
[ … ]

That means, it's on or in their body,

but it's not causing disease.

But once MRSA has reached the level

where it causes bloodstream infection,

then it's very serious.

Yeah, this is Dr. Garavaglia.

NARRATOR Dr. G he immediately alerted the Osceola

County Health Department.

DR. G We have a star football player,

years old, in the prime of his life, dying from MRSA.

And it's well known that that can spread throughout the team.

We need to make sure that the other players

are taken care of.

Say, what time is the press conference?

Starting in minutes.

So I wanted to see what the mayor is--

what the mayor's doing.

I bet it'll be the lead story of the noon news.

They had to have a town-hall meeting

at the school where the health department

came in to talk about MRSA.

NARRATOR Immediately following the meeting,

each player on the team is sent to the doctor to be tested.

Sure enough, some of his teammates ended up with MRSA.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR But then for the Smith family,

tragedy threatens to strike again.

Alonzo's brother Darius comes back positive for an infection

as well.

KIMBERLY SMITH It was crazy.

It was just crazy.

We didn't want to lose another kid, you know?

We just can't go through this.

[music playing]

NARRATOR In October , the Smiths

are terrified to learn that just one month after losing

their son Alonzo to a fatal MRSA infection,

his brother Darius has come down with a similar and potentially

deadly strain of Staph.

KIMBERLY SMITH You know, with the passing of Alonzo, I was--

was concerned, really worried.

NARRATOR Concerned that the infection could once again turn

fatal, doctors immediately begin treatment

on everyone who's tested positive for the bacteria.

That must have been a true scare for them.

NARRATOR But fortunately, with early intervention

and the use of antibiotics, Darius and the other teammates

recover.

ALONZO SMITH SR. We were relieved when they

started giving him treatment.

I was relieved it wasn't too late.

DR. G Not everyone dies that gets MRSA.

We don't know why some people die from it

and it gets into their blood and some people

it's just confined to their skin.

What's thought, though, is that you

have bad luck, that you get a bug that's

just more virulent than others.

I think the things to really realize

here is that MRSA in the community is a serious problem,

and the best way to fight it is handwashing,

not sharing towels, and disinfecting things that

are touched by many people.

NARRATOR For Alonzo's family, it's a tragic lesson learned.

But in the end, their son's passing has also

changed their outlook on life.

Life is short, so enjoy life.

Enjoy your family.

Love your kids.

DARIUS BENTLEY My last memory with Alonzo

was at the hospital.

I told him I loved him.

He told me he love-- loved me back.

DR. G This job teaches you to be so grateful because you do

see people that you can relate to that are now dead

and taken away from their loved ones.

It always hits you.

[music playing]

[dramatic music]

He's got little freckles.

That's sad.

NARRATOR Every day, Dr. G you must

put aside her emotions to get to the bottom of how someone d*ed."], index ,…}

All right, let's go see what's going on over here.

NARRATOR But when a possible homicide

comes into the morgue--

Oh my god.

NARRATOR --she is put to the test.

There's no rhyme or reason to this world sometimes.

I don't understand the senseless k*lling.

[music playing]

NARRATOR It's a bright sunny spring afternoon in Kissimmee,

Florida, when Marie Allen stops by to visit

her -year-old sister, Leesa.

But something doesn't seem right.

Leesa?

What is disturbing is that the door is not locked.

Leesa!

NARRATOR And as Marie turns the corner into the living room,

she gets the shock of her life.
[ … ]

DR. G Their sister is sitting on the couch with blood

all over her.

NARRATOR Frantic, Marie calls ,

and emergency personnel are on the scene within minutes.

But it's too late.

She's dead.

NARRATOR As the police secure the area,

Dr. G's medical investigators are

called in to assess the scene.

But as they turn their attention to Leesa's body,

it doesn't take long to locate the source of the blood.

DR. G She's clearly got some type of wound to the head,

and they find a little clump of hair and blood

on the edge of the fireplace hearth.

NARRATOR The circumstances of Leesa's death

lead Dr. G to believe that this might not be an accident.

DR. G Her door's unlocked.

She's covered with blood.

That's suspicious at face value.

We have to treat it as a homicide

until we prove otherwise.

[music playing]

NARRATOR The body of -year-old Leesa Allen, who

was found dead on her couch covered in blood,

has just arrived at the District Nine morgue.

And at this stage, foul play tops Dr. G's list of suspects.

DR. G She clearly has some type of wound to her head.

Maybe there's an altercation going on--

[screams]

--and she was slammed down there.

NARRATOR The question is, who would

want this seemingly harmless unemployed waitress dead?

So the police are waiting to see if I call this a homicide.

NARRATOR But over two decades of experience

tell Dr. G it's far too early to say for sure.

We have to keep all options open.

She could have collapsed from natural disease.

She could have been drinking and she fell.

We don't know.

Right now it's all speculation.

So there's a lot of possibilities here.

[music playing]

OK.

Oh gosh, she's a mess.

I'm shocked.

I'm really shocked at the way she looked.

Wow.

She's not looking good.

She does have a tremendous amount of blood on her.

Oh, her head's not good.

NARRATOR One look at Leesa and it's obvious she

suffered a severe head wound.

DR. G It goes through the ear.

The cartilage is actually torn.

Look at that.

It just tore right--

it scalped her.

It's consistent with her--

[scream]

--falling--

[screams]

--or being thrown down against that fireplace edge.

Oh, that's bad.

NARRATOR But Dr. G won't know if the injury

was fatal until she completes a full cranial exam.

In the meantime, she begins by collecting

any trace evidence that could point to a suspect

in a potential homicide.

First things first, I'll look for stray hairs or fibers

that don't make sense.

And I will swab her hands for DNA evidence.

NARRATOR After a thorough exam, Tom Hemphill

begins the gruesome task of undressing and washing

Leesa's blood-caked body.

DR. G And once you clean her up, it's even more disturbing.

She got some little bruises--

bruised shoulder, bruised arm.

That is worrisome.

She's got a lot of them.

NARRATOR At first, Dr. G wonders if the bruises could be

the result of a deadly b*ating.

But as she examines the pattern of bruising more closely,

she begins to question this theory.

DR. G Some of her bruises clearly look fresh,

but some of her bruises look several days old.

And she has bruising on both of her arms, and the knees,

and on her thigh, but not to the top of the head.

Very little on her abdomen, and hardly anything on her chest.

So what that tells me is, it's probably not an acute as*ault.

It really looks more like multiple falls over time.

Let me put a couple of notes on this lady so I don't forget.

So foul play really went down on my list.

NARRATOR Still, Dr. G can't rule

out homicide entirely until she completes the autopsy.

We need to know what's going on on the inside.

[music playing]

NARRATOR Dr. G begins by making a Y

incision down Leesa's torso.

DR. G Once I take that chest plate off,

I notice that she's got terrible rib fractures.
[ … ]

Look at that.

Whoa.

See over here?

These are fractures.

NARRATOR Now Dr. G wonders if some sort of foul play

could be back on the table after all.

DR. G Is that all the trauma she has?

I don't know what really is going on with this woman yet.

You want to get the tox?

NARRATOR Her next step is to draw samples of Leesa's blood,

urine, and eye fluids to send to the forensic lab for analysis.

I've got enough for a gray.

NARRATOR But it will be weeks before Dr.

G can expect an answer from the toxicology report.

For now, she pushes on with the autopsy,

on the lookout for signs of suspicious trauma

or natural disease.

OK, so her heart looks good.

Nice lungs-- they're beautiful.

NARRATOR But there are no abnormalities at all--

that is, until she works her way down to the abdominal organs.

DR. G Oh, look at that liver.

Her liver is very big for her body.

She clearly has an enlarged, fatty liver.

In our society, we see big fatty livers for a couple of reasons."], index ,…}

Number one is alcohol use.

Number two is obesity.

She sure isn't obese.

NARRATOR This leads Dr. G to believe

that Leesa's fatty liver was in fact caused by alcohol abuse.

It may have played a role but probably not enough

to cause her death.

Let's see what we have here.

NARRATOR But as she examines the surrounding organs

and tissue more closely, she notices

something else highly unusual.

Kind of pale.

Her organs are all extremely pale.

Very pale organs-- my, my, my.

NARRATOR This tells Dr. G that Leesa lost

a dangerous amount of blood.

That's very unusual unless you have

massive trauma like a g*nsh*t wound or a car accident.

NARRATOR What's strange, however,

is that Leesa's only bleeding wound appears

to be the gash on her head.

So why is she bleeding so much?

NARRATOR Dr. G now believes that something

may have been preventing Leesa's blood from properly clotting.

In a healthy body, when a wound begins to bleed,

the blood will normally coagulate or clot by itself,

trying to stop the flow.

But in Leesa's case, the process appears to have gone haywire.

DR. G Why did her body not try to coagulate that blood?

NARRATOR One reason could be a cancer

like leukemia, which can interfere with the body's

ability to clot blood.

Dr. G immediately orders microscopic

slides to look for cancer.

I don't know what's going on with her until I

can look under the microscope.

I'll be back.

NARRATOR But she still can't discount the possibility

that Leesa simply d*ed as a result

of her massive blood loss.

She has lost a considerable amount of blood.

But is it enough to k*ll her?

I don't know.

I would have to rule out everything else

before I can say that it's just the blood loss.

NARRATOR And the autopsy is far from over.

Dr. G must still examining Leesa's brain.

DR. G Is there something in her head that's going to Tr*mp it?

Oh my god.

Look at that.

Bottom line is, we need to figure

out what happened to her.

[music playing]

Someday I'm going to find what I'm looking for.

NARRATOR Dr. G is about to perform a cranial exam

on -year-old Leesa Allen, who d*ed at home

under suspicious circumstances.

DR. G So I'm shaving her head to try to expose this wound.

The brain may really have the answer for us.

One thing I want to look for is a stroke.

We're certainly going to look for trauma bleeding

around the brain from the fall.

OK.

And we'll look for any kind of degenerative disease

that may have played a role in her falling.

[music playing]

Go for it.

I'll step away from the.

NARRATOR Using an oscillating saw,

morgue technician Tom Hemphill carefully opens Leesa's skull.

Head's ready for you, doctor.

NARRATOR But when Dr. G steps in to examine the brain,

she's stunned by what she sees.

There is no trauma to the brain.

No, there's nothing really there.
[ … ]

So we know that this isn't a homicide, but--

Oh my gosh.

--there's something clearly wrong.

Her brain is shrunken.

Look at that.

She's lost a lot of the middle portion

of her cerebellar hemisphere.

NARRATOR The cerebellar hemispheres

located in the back of the brain are

responsible for important motor functions,

such as walking, coordination, and balance.

She has cerebellar atrophy.

NARRATOR In other words, part of Leesa's brain

has severely atrophied or wasted away,

making it difficult for her to control her body's movements.

She doesn't have enough atrophy to k*ll her,

but that would clearly cause her to fall a lot.

[screams]

[music playing]

NARRATOR Common causes of cerebellum atrophy

include strokes, infections, and neurological conditions

such as multiple sclerosis.

But in Leesa's case, Dr. G has another suspect in mind.

Particularly, the middle lobe is atrophic, shrunken.

That's pretty telltale for one thing.

I think I know where this is going.

NARRATOR However, to fully make sense of the case,

Dr. G will need to examine the results of Leesa's lab work.

I need to gather all those pieces of the puzzle together

to figure out what's going on.

NARRATOR Less than a month later,

the much-anticipated lab results are delivered

to the District Nine morgue.

Let's see.

NARRATOR First, Dr. G carefully checks Leesa's bone marrow

slides under the microscope looking

for a cancer that could explain why her blood failed to clot.

DR. G But there's nothing there.

There's just no cancer.

NARRATOR Next, she turns to the toxicology report.

And all it takes is a quick read to confirm Dr. G's suspicions.

She's got a whopping level of alcohol in her system, a ..

I have seen people who aren't used

to alcohol die with that level.

NARRATOR But given Leesa's disheveled appearance,

fatty liver, cerebellar atrophy, and blood alcohol level,

Dr. G can tell that she was a chronic alcoholic.

She's clearly a big-timer drinker.

NARRATOR With this last piece of the puzzle finally in place,

Dr. G is now able to reconstruct the tragedy of Leesa's

Allen's untimely death.

I think we have all our answers.

[music playing]

NARRATOR It's a breezy sun-filled afternoon,

but Leesa is shut up inside indulging

in her favorite pastime--

getting drunk.

This is a big-time alcoholic.

And ultimately, it's her chronic alcoholism

that caused all her problems.

NARRATOR Years of alcohol abuse have severely

compromised Leesa's liver.

But more importantly, her brain is now damaged beyond repair.

DR. G The alcohol caused the part of her brain

that helps with coordination and movement to shrink.

That's why she has all those bruises on her body.

That's why she's falling so much.

[scream]

But I doubt that the atrophy in and of itself

caused her to pass out or die.

[suspenseful music]

NARRATOR Instead, Dr. G believes

that on the day of her death, Leesa's brain atrophy

and her high level of intoxication

made for a deadly combination.

Both of those factors caused her to fall

against the fireplace hearth.

[scream]

NARRATOR The shear force of the fall

causes her to fracture several of her ribs

and opens up a two-inch gash in her head.

Leesa stumbles to the couch and feebly

tries to stop the bleeding.

But she has a hard time getting that blood to stop.

Because of her alcoholism, her blood

wasn't able to clot very well.

NARRATOR Like some diseases, alcohol can also

affect coagulation by interfering with the body's

ability to clot blood.

Soon, there's not enough blood to carry vital oxygen

throughout her body.

And one by one, Leesa's organs begin to shut down.

She's so drunk she doesn't have the wherewithal

to even call for help.

She dies alone and drunk on that couch.

[music playing]

If she wasn't an alcoholic, this wouldn't have happened to her.

Cerebellar atrophy is relatively uncommon.

We typically only see it in a very small percentage

of chronic alcoholics.
[ … ]

It's interesting why some people get it

and some people don't, but it's probably

the amount of malnutrition, the amount of alcohol,

and even some genetic factors.

NARRATOR Now, Dr. G faces the difficult task

of breaking the news to Leesa's sister, Marie.

The sister was relieved when I told her it wasn't a homicide.

But she didn't know she had any kind of brain abnormality.

She had no idea that alcohol could do that to you.

NARRATOR For Dr. G, Leesa's death

is a powerful cautionary tale.

DR. G The effects of alcohol on the body

play a tremendous role in the deaths

that come through my office.

In fact, it's estimated at least ,

people die in the United States a year as a result of alcohol.

Never underestimate the power of alcohol

in destroying your life and your body.