In all likelihood, the injury caused Slobodin to lose consciousness, which ended in death from hypothermia. Both the autopsy doctors and contemporary commentators say that the skull injury alone could not have been a threat to the boy's life.
Examinations of the other two - Igor Dyatlov and Zinaida Kolmogorova - showed frostbite on the limbs, and abrasions of the epidermis, but also frothy fluid in the lungs. Hypothermia was considered the cause of death.
