Experts warned on Monday that it would take weeks or months to identify the cause of death as the authorities looked into the death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry.
According to a statement from the Los Angeles Police Department, Perry was discovered unconscious in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on Saturday at approximately 4 p.m. According to the statement, Perry was pronounced deceased at the scene by the Los Angeles City Fire Department. 54 was his age.
According to the statement, officers from the Robbery Homicide section looked into Perry’s case initially due to his “celebrity status.”
The statement said, “The official cause of Perry’s death is pending the coroner’s investigation, even though there were no obvious signs of trauma.” According to the authorities, they had not seen any signs of foul play.
Perry’s cause of death was listed as “deferred” on the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner’s website earlier on Monday. This often indicates that more research is required. Perry’s case was completely absent from the internet later on Monday.
In an email sent on Monday afternoon, the agency said that it had “not yet concluded its investigation.” It provided no more details.
Experts warned that gathering further evidence and doing a toxicological check may take weeks or months.
Perry had been transparent about his battles with addiction, which sometimes resulted in hospital stays for various illnesses. Perry said that he has been in treatment and rehab centers for almost half of his life.
In “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” his book published in 2022, Perry also spoke about some of the health issues he had throughout the years. A slew of medical mishaps befell him in 2018: pneumonia, an exploded colon, a short period on life support, two weeks in a coma, nine months with a colostomy bag, and over six stomach surgeries.
In a TikTok video about the case, forensic pathologist Dr. Judy Melinek, who is not connected to the inquiry, said that it would be crucial to ascertain if Perry’s lips and nose were submerged when he was discovered, suggesting that he could have drowned.
It would be crucial to find out why if he drowned, she remarked. Did heart disease have a role? or alcoholism? According to Dr. Melinek, the lack of funds, equipment, and competent toxicologists might cause test results to take weeks to come back.
She said that in addition to looking for any home surveillance video that would help solve the case, investigators should examine the hot tub to make sure it was grounded correctly and wasn’t overheating the water. She explained that heat exhaustion and dehydration might result from hot but not scorching water, and that these conditions could lead to drowning.
In a Monday interview, Dr. Melinek said, “It’s appropriate for it to take long.” “A thorough investigation may take months to complete at times.”
The chief medical examiner for Connecticut, Dr. James Gill, said that it would be crucial to determine if an unconscious person in a hot tub had deliberately submerged themselves, suggesting a suicide, or whether they were unable to escape the water.
He speculated that the individual who was unable to exit the water may have had a heart attack or became unconscious from drug or alcohol use.
In these kinds of situations, he added, medical examiners often record the cause of death as “pending,” enabling them to send the corpse to a funeral parlor so the family may carry out burial or cremation arrangements while toxicology analyses are being carried out. He stated it may take weeks to do such testing.
The National Association of Medical Examiners’ past president, Dr. Kathryn Pinneri, pointed out via email that Perry’s drowning was not confirmed by the authorities.
However, she said, “Hot tub drownings are typically linked to alcohol, drugs, or medications, as well as underlying cardiac or neurological conditions.” Therefore, until the findings of those tests are received, the cause and method of death are often unknown.
At the age of 24, Perry landed the role of the eccentric and sarcastic Chandler Bing on the television series “Friends,” which completely transformed his life and thrust him into the spotlight with Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, and Jennifer Aniston.
The comedy aired from 1994 and 2004. After that, Perry starred in a number of films and television series, some of which, like “Almost Heroes” (1998) starring Chris Farley and “Three to Tango” (1999), were a box office failure.
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