“Full House” star Bob Saget died due to massive head injuries, according to an autopsy of the comedian, who was found dead in his hotel ro...
“Full House” star Bob Saget died due to massive head injuries, according to an autopsy of the comedian, who was found dead in his hotel room in Orlando, Florida, on Jan. 9.
The report offered the theory that Saget was fatally injured in a fall, according to The New York Times.
“It is most probable that the decedent suffered an unwitnessed fall backwards and struck the posterior aspect of his head,” wrote Dr. Joshua Stephany, chief medical examiner of Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, according to the Times.
However, there were fractures to the back, right and front of Saget’s skull.
“This is significant trauma,” Dr. Gavin Britz, chairman in neurosurgery at Houston Methodist, told the Times.
“This is something I find with someone with a baseball bat to the head, or who has fallen from 20 or 30 feet.”
Thick parts of the skull were broken, including the bones in the roof of the eye socket.
“If you fracture your orbit,” Britz said, referring to the bones over the eye, “you have significant pain.”
The autopsy found no other injuries that would indicate a fall.
There were no signs of illegal drugs or alcohol in the actor’s system, according to the Times. There were signs of a drug used to treat panic attacks and an antidepressant, but no indication that either might have contributed to Saget’s injuries, the newspaper reported.
The sheriff’s office had reported no signs of foul play were discovered at the scene.
The autopsy also revealed a massive brain hemorrhage as a result of the damage to the skull.
Saget’s family last week issued a statement about what they had been told.
“The authorities have determined that Bob passed from head trauma. They have concluded that he accidentally hit the back of his head on something, thought nothing of it and went to sleep,” the statement said.
One expert said massive damage can result from an unbroken fall if the right spot on the head is struck.
“It’s like an egg cracking,” Dr. Jeffrey Bazarian, a concussion expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told the Times.
“You hit it in one spot, and it can crack from the back to the front.”
He suggested that after the injury, Saget, 65, might not have been fully conscious.
“I doubt he was lucid,” Bazarian said, “and doubt he thought, ‘I’m just going to sleep this off.’”
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