Buckwild’s Shain Gandee: Autopsy Confirms He Died From Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

April 3, 2013 by Hollywoodite

In addition to Shain Gandee, 21, who was found dead in his vehicle this weekend, two other men died in the same mudding accident. His uncle, 48-year-old David Gandee, was also in the truck when it stalled several feet deep in the mud about a mile from Shain’s house on an isolated trail. The third passenger has since been identified as Shain’s friend Donald Robert Myers, 27, an employee at a local Subway whose bosses became concerned when he missed work on Monday morning.

TMZ.com was the first to report the cause of death for the men as “suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.” And today it’s been confirmed that the men died from the fumes as the vehicle’s tailpipe became submerged in mud along with the rest of the vehicle.

A rep for the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office released a statement saying the reality star’s autopsy was completed Tuesday.

“It was carbon monoxide. It was accidental,” Cpl. B.D. Humphreys with the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office told the New York Daily News. Humphreys continues of the vehicle Shain was driving, “The vehicle was upright in the mud, sitting unevenly. The passenger side was partially submerged, but the driver’s side was completely above the mud, so it was possible to open it. The muffler was completely submerged.”

“The speculation is that they were tired and decided to sleep there until daybreak and just left the car running thinking it would keep them warm,” Shain’s cousin Ashley Gandee told NYDN.

Ashley adds, Shain’s parents found some “relief” knowing he died in his sleep but they’re still “very traumatized… They’re not eating. They’re just in a daze. They’re having trouble understanding how someone with so much life and vibrancy could just slip away like that.”