Elisa Lam - Image Source

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Introduction

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Life is strange. With over 7 billion people on the planet it is not surprising that odd things happen to some people.

Many people meet unfortunate ends and it is sad that in many cases these deaths could have been prevented.

This is particularly true of mental illness related deaths where the signs and symptoms are often missed and a particular situation only comes to light after a person's death.

The Elisa Lam case appears to be one of these situations. What I find particularly troubling here is that despite the outward appearances here some people have tried to sensationalise this story as some kind of supernatural mystery.

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Who Was Elisa Lam?

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Lam was a young Canadian tourist who was on holiday in the United States in early 2013.

Like many young people she shared her life and her travels on social media.

As part of her journey she had been staying at a famous hotel in Los Angeles known as The Cecil Hotel (it is now known as "Stay on Main").

This hotel is famous for being the historical haunt of at least two serial killers.

It also seems to be in a historically impoverished area of town and has been associated (like many low cost hotels) with all sorts of crime, misfortune and suicides.

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Lam Disappears

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On the day she was due to check out of the Hotel, Lam did not phone her family - something which was unusual for her.

Further she did not check out of her hotel room and had left her belongings there.

Due to the uncharacteristic behaviour and their inability to find her, Lam's family contacted the authorities and a missing person's case was launched.

There was particular concern as she had a history of bipolar disorder (manic depression) for which she had been on medication.

There had been no outwards signs of her being depressed but it is natural that it would be a worry.

A search of her room did not really suggest any clues.

Police could find no signs of foul play or indeed anything to suggest where she could have gone.

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Body Found in Water Tank

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Lam just seemed to have disappeared - at least until some strange problems emerged with the hotel water supply a couple of weeks later.

People in the hotel were complaining of low water pressure and a strange taste/discolouration of the drinking water.

When investigating the issue hotel employees discovered the decomposing body of Elisa Lam in one of the water towers on the hotel roof.

There is some debate made about how accessible this water tower was. Some people have suggested that it was impossible to access the water tower due to various security measures.

However these claims have been refuted as it appears it could have been accessed using the fire escape:

This Youtube video shows how a fit, young person could easily get there - it is in Chinese (I think) but you don't need to understand to see.

If the video maker could get there (after Lam's death) it was certainly not impossible for Lam to get there.

Indeed it may have been even easier then since nobody had died in one of the water tanks previously and one would presume security would have been more lax.

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The Autopsy

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The autopsy which is available on-line in various places (including here) concludes that this was an accidental death with bipolar disorder as a contributory cause.

"The decedent died as a result of drowning. A complete autopsy examination showed no evidence of trauma and toxicology studies did not show acute drug or alcohol intoxication. Decedent had a history of bipolar disorder for which she was prescribed medication. Toxicology studies were performed for the presence of these drugs. However, quantitation in the blood was not performed due to the limited sample availability. Therefore interpretation is limited. Police investigation did not show evidence of foul play. A full review of the circumstances of the case do not support intent to harm oneself. The manner of death is classified as accident."

Some important things to note are the fact that the body was quite decomposed on recovery. There were insufficient samples for full blood testing and this is not unusual in such cases.

It should also be noted that although she tested negative on a drug screen this would only have tested for the most common drugs of abuse.

It would not be able to test for everything, including newer "legal highs" which will be too new to have specific tests for them.

So although it is thought she was not under the influence of any drugs this cannot be said with 100% certainty.

That said given her previous medical history it makes sense to suspect that her previous bipolar disorder may at least have been related to her death.

It is also possible that she might have an unusual response to certain chemical agents or drugs as a result of her existing psychiatric medication.

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The Elevator Video

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Following the discovery of Elisa Lam's body a video emerged which appears to have been taken from the Hotel elevator.

The video seems to show Lam behaving in an odd and erratic manner.

At times it appears she is looking for someone, other times it looks like she is hiding. She also seems to pressing a lot of buttons on the elevator in a manner which seems illogical.

There are also segments of the footage where she makes some unusual hand gestures.

It appears that this video is one of the main reasons for people suggesting some kind of supernatural explanation for what happened to her.

People have suggested that she was taking part in some sort of ritual known as "the elevator game".

From what I have been able to ascertain this is some kind of urban legend based game that teenagers play (like Bloody Mary).

The aim seems to be to access an alternative reality as a result of playing around with the elevator (wikipedia has a summary here).

They also point to the fact that she appears to be seeing someone who is not there and contorting in physically impossible ways.

I don't see any of that.

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My Opinion of the Elevator Video

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To be honest I find these assertions quite ridiculous.

Firstly it should be made clear that the video is short and of relatively poor quality so the amount of information we can infer from it is limited.

That said, on watching the video her behaviour may seem strange but it is entirely consistent with someone who is suffering from some sort of psychotic episode.

This would include seeing or perceiving things that are not there.

Basically psychosis can be translated to "losing touch with reality" in laymen's language.

The person suffering psychosis may experience hallucinations and delusions which may account for unusual behaviour.

There are all sorts of causes of psychosis the two most commons ones would be drugs (legal or illegal) and schizophrenia.

There is also an overlap in terms of some of the signs and symptoms between delirium (clouding of consciousness/confusion as a result of conventional physical illness) and psychosis. Indeed you could even see a combination of these causes resulting in bizarre behaviour.

Further I see no evidence of impossible contortions - that is clearly an exaggeration or misrepresentation of the footage.

This video is strong evidence to me that this is a person who was suffering from some form of psychosis or confusion and as a result (in this vulnerable state) climbed into a water tower and drowned.

Although there is no evidence of anyone else being involved we cannot be sure of that or rule it out completely. That does not mean there is anything supernatural or magical going on here.

It may be tragic and sad but these sorts of things happen more frequently than most people would presume. Just because something appears unusual or odd doesn't mean we should jump to a magical explanation.

Accidents happen, and mental illness can increase the probability of them occurring.

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Conclusion

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This is a very sad case where it appears a young woman died in a bizarre set of circumstances.

While it is bizarre there is no reason to assume it is supernatural and I think these kind of theories illustrate just how ignorant most people are of mental health problems.

I also think it distracts from some of the more obvious points that relate to whether this death could have been presented.

There are some obvious safety issues that need to be examined here. -The Lam family did try to sue the hotel but the case was dismissed in 2015.

The fact that someone visiting after Lam's death was still able to easily access the water tanks does seem to be a cause for concern.

If access to the water tanks had been more restricted perhaps this tragedy would not have happened.

Even if we put aside the risk of drowning (which is improbable to happen again) it would seem strange that unauthorised people should be able to access (and hence interfere) with the hotel water supply.

That just seems to be rather risky for public health and safety reasons.

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Thank you for reading

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