An acclaimed underwater videographer found floating in an aquatic tank died from asphyxiation, but a medical examiner made no determination as to what caused Robert Champ Williams to run out of air.
Williams, 32, was found dead Nov. 7 at his Pocola, Okla., studio, where he housed turtles that he often took to Fort Smith for nature presentations at the Janet Huckabee Arkansas River Valley Nature Center.
He was found wearing a wet suit and an apparatus called a rebreather, which is designed to allow for the re-circulation of a diver's breath.
"The rebreathing apparatus was not tested by this office," Amy Elliott, chief administration officer for the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, wrote in an email to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The autopsy report, signed Feb. 5, stated that Williams' death is "best described as asphyxia" of unknown etiology, a term referring to the cause of a condition. The report also said "no definitive anatomical or toxicological cause of death was found at autopsy." His death was ruled an accident.
Toxicology results found a "negligible amount" of ethanol in his blood. David Arboe II, the investigator who signed the report, noted that the ethanol was likely produced by microorganisms after Williams died.
Williams had roots in the area but attended college and developed his video and diving skills in California and Washington, winning a 2009 Emmy award from the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and serving on the search-and-rescue dive team for the Ventura County sheriff's office in California.
After returning to the Fort Smith area, he worked full time at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith on video and multimedia projects while also working on wildlife video projects, with his online portfolio featuring work samples from television networks The History Channel and Nat Geo Wild.
Metro on 02/14/2016