(OCRegister) – “Exact cause of Angels pitcher’s death a key issue for jurors in Tyler Skaggs wrongful death trial”

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1. “Jurors in the Tyler Skaggs wrongful death case against the Los Angeles Angels are facing dueling explanations for exactly which substance or mix of substances caused the pitcher’s death, as attorneys for both the ballclub and Skaggs’ family have offered opposing expert testimony in the ongoing trial.

   A coroner’s report released more than six years ago found that Skaggs had the powerful painkillers fentanyl and oxycodone in his system, as well as alcohol, and had choked on his vomit before he died in a Texas hotel room at the beginning of a team road trip.

   The fentanyl — which was inside a counterfeit oxycodone pill — was key to an earlier criminal trial against Eric Kay, the Angels communications staffer who had been providing Skaggs and other players with illicit opioids. That earlier jury found that “but for” the pill with fentanyl that Kay had provided, Skaggs would not have died. And that verdict led to a more than 20-year prison sentence for Kay.

   But the earlier verdict from a Texas jury didn’t necessarily outline what exact role the oxycodone and alcohol played in the death of Skaggs. And that is now a key question for the current Orange County jury tasked with deciding whether the Angels bear any responsibility for his death.

   Dr. Shaun Carstairs — an emergency medicine physician and medical toxicologist who testified on Wednesday and Friday as an expert on behalf of the team — said the mix of multiple substances led to Skaggs’ death.

   Carstairs estimated that Skaggs had consumed 11 to 13 alcoholic drinks — likely on the team flight to Texas — and then after arriving at his hotel chopped up the counterfeit pill with a room key and used a hollowed out ballpoint pen to snort the powder. Five pink pills containing oxycodone and another counterfeit pill were found in Skaggs’ room after his death.

   The doctor compared mixing fentanyl with alcohol or other substances to playing Russian roulette.

   “This is not just putting one bullet in the chamber, it is putting five bullets in a six-chamber revolver,” he testified.

   Kay obtained counterfeit pills — which Carstairs described as “M30 pills” meant to contain 30 milligrams of oxycodone — from dealers he met online. Such illicitly manufactured pills generally either come from China, or the precursor chemicals that create them are sent to Mexico and the pills are sent to the United States, Carstairs said.

   “The incidents of counterfeit M30 pills are very high,” the doctor testified. “If someone is obtaining these pills illicitly, I think there would be a significant change it would not contain what they think it contains.”

2. How did this man determine Skaggs had 11-13 drinks. Cause if it was on the team flight there should be some kind of record of it. Was this in the original police report/original tocicology report? BAC levels? Vibes?

3. Wade Boggs god rest his soul