Respiratory disease caused the death of a University of Arkansas at Fort Smith student whose body was found in an on-campus apartment on March 1, according to the Arkansas Crime Laboratory’s chief medical examiner.
Daniel Stripling, 25, of Heavener, Okla., was found dead March 1 in the Sebastian Commons apartments.
He died of “reactive airway disease,” Dr. Charles Kokes wrote in an email, explaining that the term is another way to describe asthma.
Inflammation in the air passages, also known as bronchiolitis, was a contributory cause of death, Kokes said.
Stripling “did not succumb to acute asthma, but it did lead to further inflammation in the air passages,” Kokes said, explaining that “these two processes likely compromised normal respiratory function, resulting in respiratory failure and death.”
Stripling died of natural causes with no drugs, alcohol or prescription medication found in his system, Kokes said.
An estimated 18.4 million adults have asthma in the United States, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, and the disease caused 3,651 deaths in 2014.