A police officer and his wife died from heatstroke after entering an overheated bathtub while drunk and under the influence of cocaine, Brazilian authorities reported.
Jeferson Luiz Sagaz, 37, a military police officer, and Ana Carolina Silva, 41, a nail salon owner, were found dead in a motel in Santa Catarina state on the night of August 11, according to Brazilian news outlet G1 Globo and The New York Post.
The couple had spent the day celebrating their 4-year-old daughter's birthday, consuming alcohol and cocaine. Later, they visited a nightclub before checking into the Dallas Motel around midnight.
Concerned family members raised the alarm when the couple failed to pick up their daughter the next day, prompting a missing persons report.
Authorities believe the couple suffered heatstroke after soaking in an excessively hot bathtub while intoxicated, which led to their deaths. Their bodies were found in the motel bathtub.
Authorities ruled that heatstroke was the cause of death, but that the cocaine and alcohol in their blood may have dulled their reactions to the severe heat.
The water in the bathtub had reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, while a space heater in the room was also turned up high, investigators found.
"The cause of both deaths was exogenous poisoning, favoring the process of heatstroke with intense dehydration, thermal collapse, culminating in organ failure and death," Chief Medical Examiner Andressa Boer Fronza said Thursday.
Traces of cocaine and very high blood alcohol levels were revealed in toxicology tests.
"The use of cocaine, which in doses alone could cause torpor, drowsiness and even coma in the individual, combined with alcohol, which also causes this in high doses, such as torpor, coma and drowsiness," Director of Forensic Medicine for the Scientific Police, Dr. Fernando Oliva da Fonseca, told G1 Globo.
"Add the two together, increasing the [risk] factor and that's exactly what may have happened, the person goes into torpor at that temperature and it rises and they don't feel it and don't have a defense reaction," the doctor said.
