Former Zappos chief executive Tony Hsieh locked himself inside a backyard shed – surrounded by bottles of liquor, a marijuana pipe, nitrous oxide cartridges and a whipped cream dispenser – in the minutes before he was found unconscious from smoke inhalation, according to a fire department report released Tuesday.
The report by the New London Fire Department in Connecticut offers the most extensive account to date of the circumstances of Hsieh’s death last November, NBC News reports.
But fire investigators said they were unable to determine if “carelessness or even an intentional act by Hsieh” could have started the fire. And they noted that the existence of drugs and alcohol suggests the 46-year-old entrepreneur may have been impaired or intoxicated at the time of the fire, which could explain why he didn’t react when the blaze started.
The Connecticut state medical examiner’s office has ruled Hsieh’s death as accidental. He died from complications of smoke inhalation nine days after he was pulled from the shed.
Read the full story here at NBCNews.com
