
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 21, 1994                   TAG: 9409230039
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y.
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TENNIS STAR WAS VICTIM OF FUMES FROM FAULTY HEATER

VITAS GERULAITIS died in an apparent accident. The level of carbon monoxide in the guest cottage where the former tennis star died ``went off the scale,'' investigators said.

Former tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis was killed when a faulty propane heater filled the cottage where he was staying with such high levels of carbon monoxide that investigators had to retreat for gas masks, authorities said Tuesday.

Gerulaitis, 40, was found dead Sunday afternoon. Tests showed ``between 72 and 77 percent of his blood was saturated with carbon monoxide - extremely, extremely high levels,'' said Norma Dill, assistant to the Suffolk County medical examiner.

Police said the fumes seeped into the heating and air conditioning system of the cottage, which sits near the beach on an estate in this affluent Long Island community.

The medical examiner found carbon monoxide traces during an autopsy Monday afternoon. Investigators then returned to the house and recorded carbon monoxide levels that were described as ``off the scale.''

Detective Sgt. David Betts said it was not clear if Gerulaitis was asleep when fumes swept through the house or how long he had been dead. When a servant entered the cottage Sunday afternoon, the television was on and Gerulaitis still was wearing clothes he'd worn Saturday morning at a tennis clinic.

Betts said that although the deadly gas apparently came from the heating and cooling system, the exact source had not been determined. The system had been serviced within the past two weeks, Betts said.

Gerulaitis was a frequent guest at the shingle-and-stone cottage on the 4.7-acre, $5.5 million estate of developer Martin Raynes. He arrived there during the weekend after a late-night flight from the West Coast, where he played in a tennis tournament with former rivals Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg.

Raynes last saw Gerulaitis around 5 p.m. Saturday and the two agreed to have dinner. When Gerulaitis failed to appear that evening, Raynes assumed he was sleeping.

For the 24 hours after Gerulaitis' body was found, the tennis world buzzed with speculation - unfounded, as it turned out - that Gerulaitis' death was linked to drug use.

Gerulaitis acknowledged using cocaine during the late 1970s and '80s, and said his appetite for drugs and discos undercut a career that was based on quickness and endurance. He was treated for substance abuse and was implicated, though never charged, in a cocaine-dealing conspiracy in 1983.

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB