Tragic Cause of Death Released for Former US Swim Champion Found Dead in Caribbean
The Virgin Islands Police Department revealed in a Facebook post Sunday afternoon that former championship swimmer Jamie Cail died in February of “Fentanyl intoxication with aspiration of gastric content.”
Officials from the Medical Examiner’s Office labeled the death “Accidental,” according to the post.
The VIPD did not respond to a request from NBC News for comment, and the outlet said it could not reach the ME’s office.
Cail, 42, had been found unresponsive at the home she shared with her boyfriend in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Feb. 21.
The Virgin Islands Police Department has launched an investigation in Cail’s death, according to a statement released by them at the time.
According to the VIPD’s statement, Cail was found unresponsive at 12:08 a.m. by her boyfriend, who had been at a local bar. The boyfriend had not been named in any statements.
Upon arriving, Cail’s boyfriend found her on the floor and, with the help of a friend, took her to the Myrah Keating-Smith Clinic, where CPR was administered. However, Cail eventually “succumbed to her ailment.”
One of Cail’s friends spoke to WMUR-TV and had nothing but fond words and memories of the swimmer, who was from Claremont, New Hampshire.
“She was just she was she was a very beautiful person,” the friend told the outlet. “She had a huge heart. She was really loving and kind and well-loved and popular on the island, and everybody knows her.”
“Everyone from the, you know, older generational, local families to the younger people, everybody loved her,” the friend added.
According to swimming news site SwimSwam, Cail was a gold medalist in the 1997 Pan Pacific Championships where her team won the 800-meter free relay when she was still a teenager.
USA Swimming’s archived rosters shows a Jamie “Call” on the roster for that event in 1997, probably a spelling error.
SwimSwam also noted that Cail won a silver medal at the 1998-1999 FINA Swimming World Cup in Brazil in the 800-meter free as a member of the United States Swimming National B Team.
One user on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, claimed in a now-deleted tweet to be a former teammate and classmate with Cail and lauded her work ethic, among other things.
“Very sad to hear that my hs friend and teammate, Jamie Cail (in the middle with the Bolles suit), has passed away,” wrote Jooyoung Lee, now a sociologist at the University of Toronto. “Jamie had an unmatched work ethic. She left everything in each practice and became a world class distance swimmer through grit.
“Rest in peace to a real one,” he added.
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