Citation

Rossi R, Lodise M, Lancia M, Bacci M, De-Giorgio F, Cascini F. J. Forensic Sci. 2014; 59(3): 833-835.

Affiliation

Institute of Legal Medicine, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Largo Francesco Vito, 1, 00168, Rome, Italy.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1556-4029.12408

PMID

24502511

Abstract

In the vast majority of immediate fire deaths, the mechanism of death is inhalation of toxic gases (especially carbon monoxide), direct thermal injury, or neurogenic shock due to the redistribution of the body's blood volume produced by surface heat on the skin. We present a suicidal case that is unusual because the mechanism of immediate fire death could arguably be explained in terms of a primitive autonomic reflex/the trigemino-cardiac reflex. Although this reflex is well known to surgeons and anesthetists, with possible lethal consequences in the course of invasive surgical procedures on the head and neck region, it is much less familiar to forensic pathologists.

Language: en