Official Now Believes Boxer Did Not Drink

The near-tragic story of boxer Fernie Morales has taken another curious twist.

Morales, the El Paso bantamweight who underwent brain surgery after losing a bout in Indio on Sept. 21, later tested positive for alcohol in his system.

But after finishing a three-day investigation Monday, State Athletic Commission official Dale Ashley said he now believes Morales did not drink alcohol before his fight with champion Orlando Canizales. Instead, his report indicates, Morales probably accumulated alcohol in his system in two ways:

--From inhaling rubbing-alcohol vapors.

--From absorbing rubbing alcohol through his skin.

Last Thursday, the commission released drug test results of urine samples taken immediately after the fight from both Morales and Canizales. Morales’ test showed a .06 alcohol level on his primary sample, .05 on his backup sample. In California, .08 is considered legally drunk.

Morales’ family protested the lab result, maintaining that Morales not only had not drunk alcohol before the fight but that he never drank alcohol.

“I was with Fernie until 8 o’clock the night before the fight, I saw him get rubbed down by his family with rubbing alcohol and DMSO,” said Don Muse, matchmaker for the Canizales-Morales card.

“I saw him get rubbed down the morning of the fight, too. The windows were closed, and after they rubbed him down, head to foot, they wrapped him in towels and blankets.”

A doctor contacted by The Times Monday supported the possibility that one could accumulate a high alcohol level without drinking it.

Randy Baselt, a toxicologist with the Chemical Toxicological Institute, a forensic lab in Foster City, Calif., said that Morales could have inhaled substantial amounts of rubbing-alcohol vapor.

“Most of it would have been inhaled, but if DMSO was involved, he could have ingested a lot through his skin, too,” Baselt said.

“There have been cases where babies have died from inhaling rubbing-alcohol fumes.”

Morales, meanwhile, continued to improve at John F. Kennedy Hospital in Indio, where he has been hospitalized since his surgery.

DMSO, or dimethyl sulfoxide, is a prescription-only, colorless liquid used as a local analgesic and as an anti-inflammatory agent. Made from wood pulp waste, it’s also a combustible industrial solvent.