Buried Alive: A Case Report on Traumatic Asphyxia

Abstract

The word asphyxia is of Greek derivation which means ‘a stopping of the pulse’. Any death is asphyxial in nature, but in a forensic pathology setting, asphyxia means interference with the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the body. Mechanical asphyxia (i.e. physical interference with breathing and or circulation) is frequently encountered in medico-legal death investigations[1] and one of the forms is traumatic asphyxia where exclusion of air from lungs is effected by mechanical fixation of chest in such a way that normal respiratory movements are prevented. The deaths due to traumatic asphyxia are often incorrectly attributed to blunt-force injuries, whereas the cause typically is asphyxia due to chest compression. Here, I present a case report of a 32-year-old married woman who died due to traumatic asphyxia when she was caught and pinned to the ground in between falls of earth, stones and other materials, when roof of her bedroom in which she was sleeping at night caved in. The autopsy findings along with circumstantial evidence, results in arriving of conclusion that the death occurred as a result of traumatic asphyxia. There are several clinical features of this condition which are described in the literature, a brief review of which is given in this article.