BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – A Champlain College student, apparently intoxicated, fell into drifting snow and died as he walked home from a party in a snowstorm Saturday night.

The body of Owen Smith, 21, of Camden, Maine, was found by a snowplow driver Sunday .

The state medical examiner performed an autopsy Monday, but toxicology results won’t be available for about a month, said Deputy Police Chief Walt Decker.

“It seems to be a case of hypothermia with some alcohol involvement,” Decker said. “We do have some witnesses who say he consumed a sizable amount of alcohol.”

Smith went to a party Saturday night, Decker said. Others at the party said he left sometime between midnight and 1 a.m. Sunday, Decker said. He said Smith might have set off from the party toward his home, but became disoriented in the storm; might have made stops – such as at a bar or another party – as he walked through the city; or even arrived home but headed out again later.

“His exact route, we don’t know,” Decker said.

Smith’s body was discovered at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday by a snowplow driver who spotted something odd on the ground and got out of the plow to investigate, Decker said. He said Smith was wearing a jacket.

Dr. Steve Leffler, an emergency-room physician at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, said hypothermia leads to shivering, confusion and eventually unconsciousness and death.

“You get lethargic, you get sleepy, and you start to make bad decisions,” Leffler said. He added that alcohol can speed up the effects of hypothermia because more blood remains in a person’s extremities, where it can become cold.

“That would make your decision-making twice as bad,” he said of the combination of alcohol and hypothermia.

AP-ES-12-09-03 1204EST