{"id":53071,"date":"2020-06-26T19:35:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T01:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/autopsy-on-man-who-drowned-in-animas-river-is-inconclusive\/"},"modified":"2020-06-27T01:35:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T01:35:00","slug":"autopsy-on-man-who-drowned-in-animas-river-is-inconclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/autopsy-on-man-who-drowned-in-animas-river-is-inconclusive\/","title":{"rendered":"Autopsy on man who drowned in Animas River is inconclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=fde2a642-5728-464b-a280-c50da05d673c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"831\" height=\"467\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>An autopsy to help understand why a 31-year-old man drowned in the Animas River earlier this week came up empty, said La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Flanagan of La Plata County <a href=\"https:\/\/durangoherald.com\/articles\/329378\">was found dead around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the river<\/a> behind Escalante Middle School in south Durango.<\/p>\n<p>Flanagan was found by a passing commercial rafting trip. The rafting guide pulled over downstream, waded upriver and was able to pull the body to shore.<\/p>\n<p>After an initial investigation, it appeared Flanagan had been in the water about an hour to an hour and a half before he was found. He was wearing jeans and a shirt.<\/p>\n<p>Smith said Flanagan died as a result of drowning, but what led to his death remains unclear.<\/p>\n<p>There were no obvious signs of trauma, and authorities don\u2019t suspect foul play.<\/p>\n<p>Smith had hoped an autopsy would reveal more about Flanagan\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did drown, but whether something contributed to the actual reason that he went in the river and drowned, it\u2019s going to have to come down to a toxicology,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Through a toxicology, authorities can see whether factors such as drugs or alcohol played a role in the drowning. Smith said it could take about four weeks to receive test results.<\/p>\n<p>To date, no one has come forward who may have seen Flanagan in the river, Smith said. Flanagan has ties to Durango and has been living here for a while, she said. Next of kin, who are based on the East Coast, have been notified.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jromeo@durangoherald.com\">jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coroner says a toxicology test is necessary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[304,255,1152,28,993,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-animas-river","tag-death-and-dying","tag-emergency-incident","tag-headlines","tag-investigation","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53071"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}