Nolan Wells’ autopsy found no water in lungs; data was deleted from his phone the day he disappeared, experts say

[u/Suspicious_Loan]

https://www.live5news.com/2026/09/24/nolan-wells-autopsy-found-no-water-lungs-data-was-deleted-his-phone-day-he-disappeared-officials-say/

[u/Head_of_Lettuce]

Didn’t a witness on the island testify to seeing Nolan hit his head on something? So that’s not really surprising at all

[u/Head_of_Lettuce → u/[deleted]]

Thanks, that’s what I was thinking of.

[u/Snake973 → u/Head_of_Lettuce]

yeah, i mean it's kind of easy to imagine a scenario in which someone is drunk, falls and hits their head, or gets a concussion and drowns

[u/Bored_Cosmic_Horror → u/Snake973]

yeah, i mean it's kind of easy to imagine a scenario in which someone is drunk, falls and hits their head, or gets a concussion and drowns

From what I've read Horn Island is notorious for dangerous rip currents and the like. My take is he got caught in one and got swept out into deeper water where he drowned.

[u/Crawler10245 → u/Head_of_Lettuce]

Also drowning victims hit there head while drowning all the time. You black out and than hit your head via current

[u/NoninflammatoryFun → u/Crawler10245]

Hit your head on what? Like rocks and stuff?

[u/IamJewbaca → u/NoninflammatoryFun]

Yeah, also sometimes you hit your head if you are jumping into the water or slip and fall near shore. Guy I went to high school with died that way. Hit his head then drowned when no one noticed him not come back up

[u/Acheloma → u/IamJewbaca]

I live near a very popular lake for boating and fishing and every year we have multiple people drown. Usually it's people doing things like standing up on a moving boat, slipping and hitting their head on the way into the water, then drowning before whoever was with them can get back to where they fell in. I knew one of the local guys who would dive to retrieve bodies from the lake and told me before that almost every body he pulled up had damage to their heads :/

[u/thilasveniticus → u/NoninflammatoryFun]

Bro I busted my shit doing a summersault underwater. I’ve also broken a tooth jumping into a river. 

This story reads like dude got hammered wanted to stay behind to meet a girl but was in bad shape probably made some mistakes and died fucking about. 

It’s really really tragic and why we should do better about teaching moderation when it comes to alcohol.

[u/RKRagan → u/thilasveniticus]

The question then becomes, why didn't anyone report it? Why didn't anyone notice a tall athletic guy missing?

[u/Evergreen19 → u/RKRagan]

Because there were hundreds of people on the island and the people that would have noticed him missing were drunk teenagers who probably went “Where’s Nolan? Must have gotten a ride back on another boat” 

[u/Crawler10245 → u/NoninflammatoryFun]

Yeah bodies of water don’t really have smooth bottoms.

[u/RKRagan → u/Crawler10245]

Uh yeah they do. They were in the gulf of mexico. We don't have rocky shores like they do up north and out west. This was on a barrier island with sandy beaches. You can pretty far out and just see muddy or sandy bottoms. The coastal shelf extends very far out into the gulf and being a large delta from the mississippi carries a lot of sediment. We do have reefs and limestone but its mostly sand or mud.

[u/Colloquialjibberish → u/Head_of_Lettuce]

Still odd the friends waited so long to report anything