Archiv für Kriminologie
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Archiv für Kriminologie · May 2008
Case Reports[Suicide by means of a charcoal grill. Casuistic report with review of the literature].
Due to the conversion of the gas supply from city gas to CO-free natural gas and the introduction of the catalytic converter technology for motor vehicles the number of suicides by CO poisoning has decreased considerably. Nevertheless suicides by CO poisoning are still committed once in a while. In the described case from the autopsy material of the Institute of Legal Medicine at Münster, the suicide used a charcoal grill as the source of carbon monoxide.
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Apart from typical suicides, there are sometimes unusual deaths from gunshots to the head. The presented case is a double death from the autopsy material of the Institute of Legal Medicine in Berlin. The report deals with a murder-suicide of a man, who killed himself and his 2-year-old daughter by a single gunshot. After having administered a tranquilizer to the child, he held her head to his own and fired a contact shot to his right temple so that the bullet passed through both heads.
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A 55-year-old man was found dead on the bed lying on his side in a pool of blood with a bullet entrance hole in the nape. Behind his body, a semi-automatic rifle Remington Nylon, cal. .22 LR, was detected. ⋯ A remarkable fact of the present case is that a long firearm had been used. Reports on suicidal shots to the nape are comparatively rare in the medicolegal literature and usually refer to pistols or revolvers.
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Archiv für Kriminologie · Mar 2007
Case Reports[Fatal chest injury from a shotgun slug: homicide, accident or suicide?].
A 78-year-old hunter was found dead beside his raised hide with a gunshot wound to his chest. In the present case, the reconstruction of the shooting event revealed an accident. ⋯ One of the triggers interlocked with the button of a camping chair's cushion and a shot was fired. Furthermore the morphology of wounds from shotgun slugs is discussed on the basis of the autopsy findngs.
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Archiv für Kriminologie · Sep 2006
[Not enough help for themselves--the risk of physicians to commit suicide].
Physicians seem unwilling to deal with their own suicidal problems professionally. Suicide is a repressed topic. According to international studies, medical students and physicians are clearly over-represented among suicide victims. ⋯ In this context it cannot be excluded that out of "professional respect" cardiovascular causes of death are sometimes falsely documented in death certificates instead of suicide. Despite their special education, physicians are not very good at diagnosing their own emotional disorders and asking colleagues for adequate professional help. They rather tend to camouflage their own psychological problems also because they are afraid of occupational and personal discrimination.