Hot Tub Drowning Was Likely an Accident, Coroner Says

A 23-year-old woman who died in a hot tub spent too much time in the water, lost consciousness and drowned after slipping underwater, according to a coroner’s spokesman.

An autopsy performed Sunday indicated the woman, who has yet to be identified, died as a result of hyperthermia--an increase in body temperature--after having spent almost five hours Saturday in a 105-degree hot tub at a house in the 1100 block of Waverly Heights Drive, according to Senior Deputy Coroner Craig Stevens.

A blood test showed that the woman died with alcohol in her system, Stevens said. A toxicology report will tell authorities whether other drugs were involved, but there was no immediate indication that she had taken other drugs.

At 2:50 p.m. Saturday, the owner of a house on Waverly Heights Drive near the Conejo Creek Equestrian Park called 911 to report the woman was not breathing. Authorities arrived and found the partially clad woman lying on the ground next to the spa. She had apparently been submerged for some time, and emergency medical personnel were unable to resuscitate her.

The woman was taken to Columbia Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, where she was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m.

The owner of the house has not been identified, and Stevens said despite getting good fingerprints from the woman’s body, authorities have yet to identify her. However, there is a good chance they will know who she is before the end of today, Stevens said.

“She did not have a single piece of ID on her,” Stevens said.

Stevens said her death appears to have been an accident.

“There was no evidence of any trauma. We did some tests on the Jacuzzi and it appears that the cause of death was drowning related to hyperthermia,” Stevens said.

When exposed to heat for long periods, the body eventually loses control of the muscles, Stevens said. That probably happened to the woman, whose blood alcohol level was just under the legal limit of intoxication. Stevens said the mixture of heat and the alcohol likely caused her to lose consciousness.

“She probably sat in that Jacuzzi, which was 105 to 107 degrees, for four or five hours. The body just does not like being boiled for long periods of time,” Stevens said.

Saturday’s death brings to six the number of people who have died of hot tub-related hyperthermia in the 10 years Stevens has been with the medical examiner’s office, he said. “These things are sold as being relaxing and romantic, but they become dangerous when you have had a little bit of alcohol and stay in for entirely too long a time,” Stevens said.