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We present seven unusual cases of accidental asphyxiation in adults, autopsied over a five-year period at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office (WCMEO) in Detroit, Michigan. The underlying causes and manners of each death are similar in these cases, but the circumstances surrounding death are unique. These seven avenues to accidental asphyxiation include the following: two cases in which individuals were "buried alive" (cases 1 and 2), a case of traumatic asphyxia in an individual "squeezed to death" in a trash compactor (case 3), a case of high altitude hypoxia/hypobaria coupled with hypothermia in a "stowaway" attempting to flee his native country in the passenger jet wheel well of an airplane (case 4), a case of asphyxia caused by choking on a foreign object after a subject was taken into custody by police (case 5), a case of postural asphyxia in a "squatter" found decomposed and mummified in a machine shop (case 6), and a case of accidental hanging in an alcoholic who, while acutely intoxicated, attempted to climb stairs in an unusual restraint scenario (case 7). The current literature offers an array of the world's reports citing accidental asphyxiation as a cause and manner of death; those similar to the following seven cases are discussed in tandem.
MATERIALS
The seven accidental asphyxiation deaths were investigated and autopsied between 2000-2004 at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office. Complete toxicology testing - including analysis for alcohol, commonly abused drugs, and prescription drugs - was performed on all cases, except for those in which biological fluids could not be retrieved secondary to advanced decomposition (case 6).
DISCUSSION
Cases 1 and 2: MECHANICAL ASPHYXIA
The following two cases are examples of workers who were "buried alive" at the workplace.
Case 1
A 38-year-old male truck driver was the operator of a vehicle used to carry and haul sludge such as human waste. The loaded truck was preparing to empty at a landfill.
The landfill was a large man-made hole, measuring approximately 20 feet deep and one-half mile long. He, along with the driver of another vehicle, was dumping fecal matter in the landfill. The hatch on the rear of the dumping trailer did not open properly and he got out of his vehicle to work on it....