Autopsy Of Los Angeles Angels Pitcher Tyler Skaggs Reveals Opioids And Alcohol
Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs throws to the plate during a game against the Oakland Athletics in 2018.
Mark J. Terrill/AP
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Mark J. Terrill/AP
Updated at 6:37 p.m. ET
Autopsy results for Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs revealed the presence of opioids and alcohol in his body after he was found dead in a Texas hotel room on July 1.
The toxicology report released Friday by the Tarrant County medical examiner says the cause of death was a mixture of “alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication” and that Skaggs essentially choked on his vomit while under the influence.
Skaggs’ body was found in his room while the Angels were preparing to play the Texas Rangers. His death is still under investigation by local authorities. A statement released by Skaggs’ family includes mention that an Angels employee may have been involved, and according to The Los Angeles Times, the family says it won’t rest until it learns the truth about who supplied the drugs.
“We were unaware of the allegation and will investigate,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said.
The Angels tweeted, “Tyler was and always will be a beloved member of the Angels Family and we are deeply saddened to learn what caused this tragic death. Angels Baseball has provided our full cooperation and assistance to the Southlake Police as they conduct their investigation.”
Skaggs was drafted by the Angels in 2009 and traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Angels reacquired him for the 2014 season and since then he had a record of 25-32.
Why Many U.S. Companies Have Kept Production In China And Have No Plans Of Moving
NPR’s Ailsa Chang speaks with Basic Fun CEO Jay Foreman about the effects China tariffs are having on his toy company.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
With more tariffs looming in the U.S.-China trade war, American companies are growing more pessimistic about the outlook for doing business in China. But 87% of U.S. firms with operations in China say they still haven’t moved production to another country, and they have no plans to do so. That’s according to a new survey from the U.S.-China Business Council.
To find out why most plan to stay put, we’ve called up Jay Foreman. He’s the CEO of Basic Fun. It’s the toy company that makes K’Nex, Lincoln Logs, Cutetitos and Pound Puppies.
Jay Foreman, welcome.
JAY FOREMAN: Thank you. Glad to be here.
CHANG: So I understand that currently 90% of your products are manufactured in China. Tell me why. What benefits does China offer you to base your manufacturing there?
FOREMAN: Sure. I mean, China offers sort of a suite of benefits, if you will, which is a highly trained labor force, a well-financed infrastructure, a great safety and quality control regimen, excellent transportation and communication points and, basically, a system of production for light industrial that’s been set up over a 30-year period.
CHANG: I mean, how possible would it be to replicate those conditions in, say, Southeast Asia or India?
FOREMAN: It would be really difficult. For example, if we went to Vietnam – which is a great country with great manufacturing – it’s only 10% of the size of China. So if you just moved 5% or 10% of Chinese production into Vietnam, you’re going to max out the capacity of their workforce, and that’s going to increase prices, increase rents and make it more difficult for products to be produced there at the same competitive prices as we’ve been getting from China.
You can go to India, which has got a huge population base, but India’s infrastructure is really not set up for this. You know, we’ve developed protocols, at least in the toy industry in China, where we’re able to make safe, high-quality product at a great price. There’s no system like that set up in India. It could take 10 or 15 years to set that up. It’s taken us 30 years to build our production base in China.
CHANG: Yeah.
FOREMAN: And then bringing production back to the United States is not possible and realistic because we don’t have a labor pool here. The president is closing the borders to low-skill labor. So who’s going to make the product?
CHANG: Now, if President Trump does go through with imposing tariffs on toy imports from China after the holiday season – let me ask you – could you afford to maintain most of your production in China still?
FOREMAN: Well, we really won’t have a choice but to find a way to afford it. And the one way to afford it is, we will have to, at some point during the course of 2020, begin to pass the tariffs along to the consumer.
CHANG: So how much of a price hike are we talking for, say, like, a Cutetito?
FOREMAN: I think you’re thinking about everything from sneakers to bluejeans to toys to flip-flops to iPhones going up 15% to 30% in the second half of 2020. And by the way, what happens when you move it to India? Mr. Trump, the dealmaker, will make a deal with China sometime in the next six to 12 months, or somebody else will be in office and they’ll make a deal, while everybody’s moving their supply chain to India, and then India will become the next target for trade.
CHANG: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. How has that uncertainty affected daily operations in your company now?
FOREMAN: Well, instead of sitting down to plan on what we think kids are going to want to buy next year, we’re sitting down every day taking a look at what tariffs are going to do to affect our profitability, when they’re going to hit.
We have something called Fun Friday here every other week, and we talk about what’s happening in the business and what’s new. And usually, we talk about toys and holidays and all those kind of things. And now our employees are coming back to us and asking us how the tariffs are going to affect them, should they be planning on buying a car. Can they expect a bonus? And it’s hard for us to give them a straight answer on that because we really don’t know how this is all going to affect us.
CHANG: Jay Foreman is the CEO of Basic Fun, a toy company based in Boca Raton, Fla.
Thanks very much for speaking with us today.
FOREMAN: You’re welcome. Pleasure to be with you today.
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For 2 Nurses, Working In The ICU Is ‘A Gift Of A Job’
Kristin Sollars (left) and Marci Ebberts say nursing is more than just a job. “Sometimes I wonder why everyone in the world doesn’t want to be a nurse,” Sollars says.
Emilyn Sosa for StoryCorps
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Emilyn Sosa for StoryCorps
For nurses Kristin Sollars and Marci Ebberts, work is more than just a job.
“Don’t you feel like you’re a nurse everywhere you go?” Sollars, 41, asked Ebberts, 46, on a visit to StoryCorps in May.
“I mean, let’s be honest, every time we get on a plane you’re like, E6 didn’t look good to me. Keep an eye out there.”
Sollars and Ebberts have grown so close while working together that they’ve come to call themselves “work wives.” They first met in 2007, working side by side in the intensive care unit at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.
Now they work closely as nurse educators at the hospital, training other nurses in critical care.
“Between us, we’ve taken care of thousands of critically ill patients,” Ebberts said. “You carry a little bit of them with you. And they shape you.”
Sollars and Ebberts reflect on how their work influences their memories.
“When I think about that patient, that is the most seared in my brain, I know exactly what bed but I cannot tell you the patient’s name,” Sollars said. She goes on to remember a particularly unforgettable case: “I always think about CCU (Coronary Care Unit) Bed 2.”
The patient had a cardiac arrest. “We code him, and we get that heart rate back,” she said, describing their resuscitation efforts that stabilized the patient.
“And that was just the first of a dozen times that he coded,” Ebberts remembered.
All the while, his wife was by his side.
“We were giving her the bad prognosis. Things were looking really bad, and she said, ‘Can I be in bed with him?’ ” Sollars said.
But the nurses saw that as a risk. “This man’s got everything we’ve got in the hospital attached to him,” Sollars recalled.
“So many wires and tubes and monitors,” Ebberts added.
Still, they proceeded carefully, slowly lifting everything so she could wiggle in next to him.
“I can just remember her sobbing, saying, you know, I wasn’t a good enough wife. I should have loved you better,” Sollars said.
When the patient again suffered an irregular, life-threatening heart rhythm called ventricular fibrillation, Sollars and Ebberts started another round of chest compressions.
But this time, the patient’s wife asked the nurses to stop trying to resuscitate him. “We’re gonna let him go next time he does that,” Ebberts remembers his wife saying.
Sollars says the rewarding part as a nurse is caring for patients and their families during these crucial life moments, as difficult as they can be to witness.
“To be with people and to create those environments where they get to say their unfinished business to their husband — it’s such a gift of a job,” Sollars said. “Sometimes I wonder why everyone in the world doesn’t want to be a nurse.”
Sollars says nursing levels her sense of what’s important.
“It does impact the way we see the entire world. That person in front of us in the grocery store is all worked up about how that guy bagged their groceries,” she said.
“Nobody’s dying,” Ebberts said, “until someone is. And then we’re ready.”
Audio produced for Morning Edition by Aisha Turner and Camila Kerwin.
StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.
