Content warning: This story contains the name and image of an Aboriginal man who has died. He has been identified with the permission of his family.
Indigenous man Nathan Booth suffered such a massive, agonising fracture to his left ankle on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in 2019 it would have been almost impossible for him to walk anywhere, an inquest was told on Thursday.
The coronial inquest into Mr Booth's mysterious death heard compelling testimony from Brisbane-based survival expert Dr Paul Luckin, who said he believed the deceased either "stepped or jumped or fell from a high rock, [and] would have fallen forward with great force", likely hitting his head on a rock.
"This may well have knocked him [Mr Booth] unconscious or caused him concussion," Dr Luckin said.
Given the position in which Mr Booth's body was found, face-down, his foot trapped, and potentially with a restricted airway, Dr Luckin said "he would have suffered a great deal".
The second day of the coronial hearing heard from a range of experts including Dr Luckin, fluvial geomorphologist Professor Jon Olley, and AFP Search and Rescue specialist Sergeant Anthony Barr.
Dr Luckin described how Mr Booth suffered a "gross displacement" injury which snapped his left fibula just above the ankle joint. This was determined by Dr Luckin to be around the time of death.
"He had some difficulty in extracting his left foot [from between the rocks], which is consistent with falling into a position and remaining there," Dr Luckin said.
Before convening the day's proceedings, Coroner Ken Archer warned some things heard and seen in the room would be distressing to around 30 family and friends of Mr Booth who attended the inquest.
The family have been lobbying fiercely for the inquest after speculation circulated around the cause of Mr Booth's sudden disappearance in late June 2019, just a few weeks before his 40th birthday.
His partially decomposed body was discovered by the river in December of that same year by two boys who were walking the river downstream looking for good fishing spots.
One of the key areas of investigation for the hearing on Thursday was whether Mr Booth's body potentially had been carried downstream by the river.
However, the evidence from water science expert Prof Olley - who was dubbed the "body finder" after his testimony in the trial of Daniel Morcombe's accused killer Brett Cowan 10 years ago - revealed such were the river's low water flows in the drought year of 2019, the likelihood of a body being carried were "almost impossible".
Images taken from a satellite passing over the location on July 25, 2019 revealed what appeared to be a body beside the river, which gave Prof Olley a reference period of one month on which to base his calculations.
Such was average low river height and flow over that month period in mid-2019 - less than two cubic metres per second - that there were as many as eight "pinch points" in the Murrumbidgee from Pine Island down to the place where the body was recovered, any of which would have stopped a body floating downriver.
The inquest will conclude on Friday.
