Coroner: Missing Exec Hit Head in Fall

NEW ORLEANS - The New Orleans coroner says a Houston energy executive drowned in the Mississippi River, and apparently hit his forehead as he fell from a steamboat dock.

Dr. Frank Minyard said Wednesday that the autopsy of 54-year-old Douglas Schantz found a lesion on his forehead as well as evidence of drowning.

Minyard says he expects results of blood tests in two to three weeks, showing how much Schantz drank before leaving a Bourbon Street bar about 2 a.m. Friday. From the bar, Schantz wandered over to the Steamboat Natchez dock, climbed over a guard rail and fell from a slender ledge while walking toward the gangplank.

Schantz was president of Sequent Energy Management. He came to New Orleans to give Tulane University's Energy Institute $25,000 from the company.

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Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.nola.com