{"id":152024,"date":"2026-02-11T20:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T20:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152024\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T20:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T20:23:08","slug":"alcohol-use-contributed-to-death-of-doctor-found-in-miami-dollar-tree-freezer-autopsy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152024\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol use contributed to death of doctor found in Miami Dollar Tree freezer: Autopsy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text text--small text--normal text--primary\">Published:\u00a0February 11, 2026 at 3:04 PM<\/p>\n<p>lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpand<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/UJOQNRVEJBCFNHZPMIXUD2WCQM.jpg\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/>Dr. Massiell Garay Sanchez <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">MIAMI \u2014 Alcohol use contributed to the death of a Nicaraguan doctor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2025\/12\/14\/woman-found-dead-inside-freezer-at-miami-dollar-tree-cops-say\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2025\/12\/14\/woman-found-dead-inside-freezer-at-miami-dollar-tree-cops-say\/\">whose body was found<\/a> in a Miami Dollar Tree freezer in December, according to an autopsy report obtained by Local 10 News on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Dr. Massiell Garay Sanchez was found dead in the freezer of the discount store at 968 SW Eighth St., in Miami\u2019s Little Havana neighborhood, on Dec. 13.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Authorities said the 32-year-old anesthesiologist is believed to have walked into a restricted employee area, into the freezer and then became trapped, remaining there overnight. Her body was found unresponsive by employees who returned to the area the following morning. Detectives ruled out foul play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The toxicology report from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner\u2019s Office states that Garay Sanchez had a blood ethanol level of 0.112%, which would have been above the legal limit to drive, and an ocular fluid ethanol reading of 0.156%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">She did not have any illicit drugs in her system, however. Her cause of death was listed as environmental hypothermia with ethanol use as a \u201ccontributory cause.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Garay Sanchez\u2019s family members filed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2026\/01\/30\/family-of-doctor-found-dead-in-miami-dollar-tree-freezer-sues-business-for-50-million\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.local10.com\/news\/local\/2026\/01\/30\/family-of-doctor-found-dead-in-miami-dollar-tree-freezer-sues-business-for-50-million\/\">an eight-figure lawsuit<\/a> against Dollar Tree, claiming the store had a duty to protect its patrons from \u201cforeseeable risks of harm,\u201d such as walk-in freezers, and implement and enforce \u201creasonable safety policies and procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It also maintains that the business should have taken the \u201creasonable action\u201d to assist in locating a customer who \u201cwas missing or unaccounted for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Garay Sanchez was survived by her husband, two children and other relatives.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfe0 News From Your Neighborhood<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-article-body__copyright\">Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Chris Gothner\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/https:\/\/author-service-images-sandbox-us-east-1.publishing.aws.arc.pub\/wplginc\/3be3b5ed-fb4b-43ce-8b.jpeg\"  width=\"100\" height=\"100\"\/>Chris Gothner <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-author-bio__author-description\">Chris Gothner joined the Local 10 News team in 2022 as a Digital Journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published:\u00a0February 11, 2026 at 3:04 PM lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpandDr. Massiell Garay Sanchez MIAMI \u2014 Alcohol use contributed to the death&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-152024","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}