“Buckwild” Star Shain Gandee Found Dead: 911 Call Released
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MTV(KANAWHA COUNTY, W. Va.) — The man who found Buckwild star Shain Gandee’s body and that of two other men called 911 to report he had discovered “three dead people,” and broke down as he told the dispatcher what had happened.
“Oh my God….Oh, Jesus,” the man, a friend of Gandee’s who’d been involved in a search for him, said to the 911 operator at around 11:30 a.m. on Monday.
Gandee, 21, of Sissonville, W. Va., had not been seen since he and his uncle, David Gandee, 48, left a bar at around 3 a.m. Sunday to go four-wheeling near his home.
The Buckwild star was found behind the wheel of a Ford Bronco SUV that was partially submerged in mud. The muffler was completely covered by mud.
Gandee’s uncle and a third man, Donald Robert Myers, 27, were also inside the car. Autopsy results showed that the three men died of carbon monoxide poisoning, police said Tuesday.
The deaths have been ruled accidental.
On the audio of the 911 call, the caller identified Gandee and his uncle to the female dispatcher, saying: “They’re up on a hill in a mud hole….We’ve been looking for them for two days. Oh my God.”
The dispatcher asked if there were any visible signs of trauma or any evidence of drugs in the SUV, and the caller said no. Then, the dispatcher asked if he was sure that the men were dead.
“They’re definitely not breathing, correct?” she asked, and he replied: “No ma’am, they’re not.”
“Are they cold to [the] touch?” she asked.
“Yes, they are,” he said, adding that they didn’t have a pulse.
The dispatcher asked the caller to meet the paramedics and take them to the location of the SUV.
Buckwild is a reality TV series that follows the lives of Shain Gandee and his friends and family. The program airs on MTV, which confirmed on Tuesday that it would suspend production of the series.
In a statement to ABC News, MTV said it was “shocked and saddened” by the deaths.
“Shain had a magnetic personality, with a passion for life that touched everyone he met and we will miss him dearly,” the statement added.
Friends had planned to stage a benefit Wednesday to raise money for Shain Gandee’s parents, Dale and Loretta Gandee.
“Shain’s dad lost his son and his brother, two people very important to him in his life, in the same day,” Ashlee Gandee, 32, Shain’s second cousin, told ABC News on Tuesday. “They’re taking it hard, as they should be.”
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