The Smoking Gun is reporting that BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hasting, who died on June 18 in a fiery one-car accident in Los Angeles, had meth and marijuana in his system at the time of the crash. The meth isn’t believed to be enough to have an “intoxicating effect,” according to the coroner, but the marijuana is believed to have been taken just “hours earlier.”
Hastings was speeding down a residential boulevard at 4:30 am when he lost control of his vehicle and hit a tree. The coroner’s report says Hastings “[d]eath was rapid, within seconds” due to the “massive blunt force trauma.”
The report also says that Hastings family was trying to convince the writer to enter into rehab at the time of the crash:
Hastings’s family told investigators that they were attempting to get Hastings into detox since they thought he “had started to use drugs again in the past month or so.” Hastings was believed to have been sober “for about the past 14 years.”
The report also says that in 1999, while “under the influence,” Hastings drove his car into a pole.
While Hastings’s history was not known to include “suicide attempt/s or ideation/s,” his brother said that his sibling “believed he was ‘invincible,’ believing he could jump from a balcony and would be okay.” Hastings’s brother added that he “would not be surprised if any stimulants were found within the residence, including cocaine.”
The full report can be read here.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC