An autopsy report on a Tennessee fan who died in a fall from the Georgia Dome says the man died from trauma to his head.
Isaac Grubb, 20, of Lenoir City, Tenn., fell 45 feet from an upper deck during the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game between the University of Tennessee and North Carolina State on Aug. 31, Georgia World Congress Center Authority officials said.
The report, released Tuesday by the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, also said a preliminary screening showed no alcohol or drugs in Grubb’s system. Investigators said that witnesses reported seeing Grubb drinking alcohol before the game outside the dome around 5 p.m.
The screening results should be approached with caution, the doctor who conducted the autopsy told the AJC.
Dr. Michele Stauffenberg said that the screening, which was based on vitreous fluid collected from Grubb’s eye, is not a definitive test for alcohol or drugs.
“It’s a screening test … the definitive test is the blood alcohol” sample that was collected and sent to the Georgia Crime Lab, she said. The results of that test could take six to eight weeks to return.
Stauffenberg said it’s possible that the screening test could show no drugs or alcohol in the system and the blood test still come back positive.
“That’s the nature of the screening test … it’s prone to having false positives and false negatives,” she said. She told Channel 2 Action News that the results of the tests are further complicated by the fact that fluid from the eye was used.
“The test is designed to work on urine, but we didn’t have any urine available, so we just used vitreous fluid, which is the fluid out of the eye,” she said.
Stauffenberg said the screening test is only used as a possible “starting point” in an investigation.
None of the vendors inside the dome sold Grubb alcohol, GWCC officials said after the incident.
GWCC spokeswoman Jennifer LeMaster said Grubb entered the Dome’s upper Gate C at 7:23 p.m. He was celebrating a Tennessee touchdown that happened at 8:23 p.m. when he fell over the railing, she said. The autopsy report said the fall was an accident.
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