Coroner can’t say whether death was accident or suicide

Coroner releases report into death of Edmonton man found floating in river near OK Falls

Intoxication by drugs and alcohol was deemed a contributing factor, but a coroner couldn’t rule out suicide in the drowning death of a man last year near Okanagan Falls.

The body of 24-year-old Edmonton man Andrew Scott Gangl was found floating in the Okanagan River on April 25, 2014, about three kilometres downstream from the Skaha Lake Dam.

He was wearing a T-shirt, undershirt, underwear and socks, and one of his shoes was discovered about two kilometres upstream from his body near the first pedestrian bridge downstream from the dam, coroner Walter Burns wrote in his report, which was released Tuesday.

Although Gangl had a large cut over his left eye and minor scrapes and bruises, police didn’t find any evidence to suggest he met with foul play, according to the report, which noted an autopsy confirmed he was breathing when he entered the water.

Gangl had been in Okanagan Falls for about two weeks prior to his death, but he didn’t have any money for bus fare to return to Edmonton.

On April 24, he was observed consuming alcohol and crystal methamphetamine, then left a friend’s home around 7 p.m. with some ecstasy pills in his pocket.

While a pathologist confirmed Gangl had no underlying health issues, family members told the coroner he had been “thinking a lot about suicide” a few years earlier, Burns wrote.

And although “there was no recent information to indicate he would commit self-harm, Mr. Gangl was facing financial challenges and had just been asked to leave his friend’s residence.”

A toxicology test later determined Gangl was “moderately” intoxicated by alcohol at the time of his death and had ingested an amount of methamphetamine “within a range where toxic effects have been reported,” the coroner wrote.

“This is a non-witnessed incident and the overall evidence, on the balance of probabilities, equally supports this event being classified accidental or suicide,” Burns concluded.