Suicide with plastic bag and helium gas: two case report.
Keywords:
Suicide, helium, suffocation, euthanasia.Abstract
The confinement as well as the burial are part of the suffocations due to lack of breathable air. Its main etiology is accidental, as it happens with miners or the children who play with plastic bags or get trapped inside unventilated places. At present, the increase in the world has been seen especially in developed countries of the use of a plastic bag in conjunction with some noble gas (mainly helium) as a suicidal method or as a final process of euthanasia. In this article, we will review two cases in Costa Rica, with their findings in the necropsy, the lack of toxicological findings and the importance of the death scenario to be able to issue a criterion from the legal medical point of view.
References
2. Sacks MH, Kemperman I. Final Exit as a manual for suicide in depressed patients. The American journal of psychiatry. 1992 Jun.
3. Church IC, Phillips JP. Suggestion and suicide by plastic bag asphyxia. The British Journal of Psychiatry. 1984 Jan;144(1):100-1.
4. Jorge RR. Consideraciones médico Legales sobre asfixias mecánicas. Revista de la Escuela de Medicina Legal. 2009(11):43-9.
5. Gilson T, Parks BO, Porterfield CM. Suicide with inert gases: addendum to Final Exit. The American journal of forensic medicine and pathology. 2003 Sep 1;24(3):306-8.
6. Grassberger M, Krauskopf A. Suicidal asphyxiation with helium: report of three cases. Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift. 2007 Jun 1;119(9-10):323-5.
7. Hernández MP, Casanova MG, Gómez MT. Inhalación de helio.
8. Howard MO, Hall MT, Edwards JD, Vaughn MG, Perron BE, Winecker RE. Suicide by asphyxiation due to helium inhalation. The American journal of forensic medicine and pathology. 2011 Mar 1;32(1):61-70.
9. Lim HS, Hahm KW, Kang HW. Observation of 17 asphyxial suicides by helium gas. Korean Journal of Legal Medicine. 2013 May 1;37(2):78-83.
10. Marzuk PM, Tardiff K, Hirsch CS, Leon AC, Stajic M, Hartwell N, Portera L. Increase in suicide by asphyxiation in New York City after the publication of Final Exit.
11. Musshoff F, Hagemeier L, Kirschbaum K, Madea B. Two cases of suicide by asphyxiation due to helium and argon. Forensic science international. 2012 Nov 30;223(1-3):e27-30.
12. Barbería Marcalain E, Correas Soto CJ, Miró García F. Dos casos de muerte debida a sofocación por bolsa de plástico. Cuadernos de Medicina Forense. 2004 Jul(37):49-56.
13. Instituto de medicina legal de Cataluña. Método suicidio e internet; Mayo 2012. Disponible en: http://www.academia.cat/files/425-3447-DOCUMENT/Arroyo-27-24Maig12.pdf
14. Ogura K, Takahashi W, Morita Y. A case of hypoxic encephalopathy induced by the inhalation of helium that resolved with no neurological complications: a case report and analysis of similar cases. AcuteMedicine & Surgery. 2019.
15. Oei GT, Weber NC, Hollmann MW, Preckel B. Cellular effects of helium in different organs. Anesthesiology: The Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. 2010 Jun 1;112(6):1503-10.
16. Tsujita A, Okazaki H, Nagasaka A, Gohda A, Matsumoto M, Matsui T. A new and sensitive method for quantitative determination of helium in human blood by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry using naturally existing neon-21 as internal standard. Forensic toxicology. 2019 Jan 22;37(1):75-81.
17. Van den Hondel KE, Buster M, Reijnders UJ. Suicide by asphyxiation with or without helium inhalation in the region of Amsterdam (2005–2014). Journal of forensic and legal medicine. 2016 Nov 1;44:24-6.
18. Smit KF, Oei GT, Brevoord D, Stroes ES, Nieuwland R, Schlack WS, Hollmann MW, Weber NC, Preckel B. Helium induces preconditioning in human endothelium in vivo. Anesthesiology: The Journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. 2013 Jan 1;118(1):95-104.
19. Schaff JE, Karas RP, Marinetti L. A gas chromatography–thermal conductivity detection method for helium detection in postmortem blood and tissue specimens. Journal of analytical toxicology. 2012 March 1;36(2):112-5.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
The intellectual property of accepted works belongs to their authors, however access to them is totally open and free, so they can be reproduced totally or partially with the only limitation of recognizing the authorship and the source of publication (Revista Medicina Legal de Costa Rica), as long as said exploitation does not have commercial character.