Forensic science international
-
The process of swallowing or inserting illegal packets of drugs for the purpose of evading law enforcement officers carries risks other than criminal charges. It can be fatal. ⋯ The most frequent cause of the death among body packers is acute drug intoxication due to rupture of the package(s) within the gastrointestinal tract. We present the first documented case of a body packer that died from cocaine intoxication following the rupture of packets of cocaine in Western Pennsylvania.
-
According to the common view held by the general public, doctors can never make professional mistakes, as if by virtue of their profession they were bound to be infallible. Moreover, when mistakes do occur in the medical field they are seen in a personal light, being attributed to an individual professional figure who is expected to answer for them in both the penal and the civil field. In this paper, the authors made a retrospective analysis of 37 of all the 725 legal suits filed in some hospitals of the Apulian region (South Italy) during the period between 1991 and 2000, being all those lodged against operators in the neurological, urological, otorhino-laryngoiatric and cardiosurgical fields, recorded in the Archives of the Health Services of Bari, Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto or in those of our Forensic Department following consultations on medical and surgical responsibility.
-
Comparative Study
Carbon monoxide-related deaths in a metropolitan county in the USA: an 11-year study.
Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning as a cause of death is well documented in industrialized countries. The objective of this study was to compare demographic data in deaths due to accidents (in fires) and suicides in the same population between 1988 and 1998. Furthermore, the potential effect of a community wide education effort regarding safety in the home was assessed. ⋯ This decreased to 0.6/100,000 in 1996, increased to 1.2/100,000 in 1997 followed by a decrease to 0.8/100,000 in 1998. This suggested that the program may have aided in decreasing these types of deaths. Deaths due to fires in the suburbs were <1/100,000 throughout the study period.
-
Case Reports
Fatal embolism of the anterior spinal artery after local cervical analgetic infiltration.
A 66-year-old man received a local infiltration of cortisone and xylocain in the left paravertebral region between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae. Respiratory failure occurred 2.5 h later with subsequent successful resuscitation. During the following 2 months of assisted ventilation up to the patients death, tetraplegia with concurrent full consciousness throughout was observed. ⋯ The forensic autopsy revealed pneumonia as cause of death. Neuropathology confirmed anterior infarction at the C2/C3 level of the cervical myelon, with obstruction of the anterior spinal artery by an epithelialised fibrocartilaginous embolus. The autoptic findings suggest that this embolus stems from the site of previous analgetic infiltration, with accidental laceration of an intervertebral disc and subsequent transportation of discous material via injection canula into an artery.
-
Case Reports
Death due to positional asphyxia under severe alcoholisation: pathophysiologic and forensic considerations.
In contrary to "physical restraint", describing a fixed body position due to external devices, "positional restraint" is defined as an abnormal body position, resulting from accidental fixation under unfortunate circumstances. We report on a remarkable case of positional asphyxia of an alcoholised young man after a fall down a staircase. On external examination, the body showed petechiae of the conjunctivae and oral mucosa, abrasions on the left zygomatic region and scratch marks, respectively. ⋯ Haemorrhagic pulmonary edema and cerebral edema were observed; blood alcohol concentration: 2.60 g/l, urine alcohol concentration: 3.26 g/l. As cause of death, positional asphyxia after blunt head trauma has to be considered as well as lethal ethanol intoxication. To us, alcoholisation attributed to the fall and together with unconsciousness following blunt head trauma circumvented self-rescue efforts, and therefore, aggravated the potentially lethal impact of positional restraint.