The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Robert Dziekanski was under the impression the victim had only been hit once with an RCMP Taser, not multiple times

And Dr. Charles Lee agreed Monday at a public inquiry into Dziekanski's death that multiple hits could have been a contributing factor to his October 2007 death at Vancouver's airport.

"We've heard evidence there were five deployments of the Taser over a period of 43 seconds . . . for a (stun) duration of 31 seconds," Walter Kosteckyj, the lawyer representing Dziekanski's mother, asked Lee.

"You weren't aware of that when you did your autopsy?"

"No, I wasn't," said Lee.

"Isn't that a significant fact, sir?"

"It is. It's something that would have been nice to know but I don't think it would have changed my cause of death."

Still, Lee said the multiple shocks could have been significant.

Lee, who said he has performed as many as 3,000 autopsies, said he was familiar with the "basics" of how the Taser works.

Asked if a Taser can cause the heart muscle to contact, Lee said it was his understanding that the current "still has to reach the heart in order to cause the heart to have an abnormal rhythm or abnormal contraction."

Kosteckyj asked again if Lee considered Taser exposure for a total of 31 seconds to be significant.

"Yes, in the sense it could have contributed to the death, but again that's still part of the restraint process in the sense that I can't say that it was only the Taser that caused his death," the forensic pathologist replied.

The autopsy found Dziekanski, 40, died because his heart stopped.

Lee said it was difficult to say whether the longer Taser exposure was significant because some deaths occur in similar restraint circumstances without the involvement of the Taser.

"Therefore, in those situations the other forms of restraint were also clearly significant," said Lee.

Lee said it was also difficult to say if Dziekanski would have lived had he not been hit with the Taser and instead had been restrained in another way.

"It's quite possible he still would have died," he told the inquiry.

The Taser jolts "probably contributed to his death in the same way that the tackling by the police officers played a role in his death. I can't say one is more important than the other."

The inquiry heard earlier that the Taser was deployed five times by one of four RCMP officers summoned to deal with an agitated man throwing furniture at the airport, but it's unclear how many times Dziekanski was actually shocked.

After Dziekanski fell to the floor after the first shock, he was restrained by the officers. The inquiry has heard that one officer held his knee on the his neck.

Lee told commission counsel Patrick McGowan that the principal cause of death was "sudden death during restraint" and that there were no anatomical or toxicological findings that may have contributed to the death.

He said a "contributing factor" may have been chronic alcoholism.

Lee said he had a "fatty liver" that can be caused by heavy drinking, and parts of his brain were shrunken and atrophied and that is "fairly specific to chronic alcohol use."

His heart ventricles were dilated and the wall of the heart was thinner than usual, another possible sign of heavy alcohol use, he said.

Despite that, Lee said his overall assessment of an internal examination of Dziekanski was that he was in "reasonable health overall."