Citation

Meatherall R, Oleschuk C. J. Forensic Sci. 2015; 60(6): 1666-1667.

Affiliation

Department of Laboratory Medicine, St. Boniface Hospital, 409 Tache Avenue, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R2H 2A6.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1556-4029.12857

PMID

26212682

Abstract

A 35-year-old man ingested an unknown amount of sodium azide and died within 2 h. The postmortem interval was 3 days. No alcohol or drugs were found in the blood and urine. Azide was derivatized in the peripheral blood, urine, and vitreous fluid with propionic anhydride. A portion of the headspace was injected onto a gas chromatograph with a nitrogen-phosphorus detector. Azide was quantitated in the peripheral blood (1.1 μg/mL), urine (7.5 μg/mL), and vitreous (43 μg/mL). The vitreous appears to be a better fluid for azide screening because of slower degradation.

Language: en