What is mechanical asphyxiation?
Mechanical asphyxiation refers to shutting off of the airway by some means external to the body. So getting a scarf caught in a machine, or having someone strangled by hands, would be mechanical asphyxiation. Something mechanical was used to cause asphyxiation..
What is physical asphyxia?
It happens when a force or object keeps you from breathing. Lots of accidents can lead to it. Some examples of physical asphyxia are: Choking. This is when food or an object gets stuck in your airway and blocks air from getting to your lungs.
How do people die from mechanical asphyxia?
Mechanical asphyxia by three different mechanisms We report the case of death of a 75-year-old Caucasian woman, produced by three different ways of mechanical asphyxia: smothering and strangulation by hand and traumatic asphyxia by thoracic compression.
What are asphyxiants and what causes them?
“Most mechanical asphyxiants affect breathing or blood flow, the latter usually due to neck vessel or thoracic compression,” Medscape notes. Non-mechanical asphyxiations might be caused by chemicals in the air, for example.
What are the types of mechanical asphyxia?
According to Shkrum and Ramsay, mechanical asphyxia encompasses smothering, choking, positional asphyxia, traumatic asphyxia, wedging, strangulation and drowning.
What causes mechanical asphyxia?
One type of asphyxia is called "physical" or "mechanical." It happens when a force or object keeps you from breathing. Lots of accidents can lead to it. Some examples of physical asphyxia are: Choking.
What is mechanical suffocation?
Mechanical suffocation constituted the majority (80%) of all injury-related mortality cases for infants. Infants who die from mechanical suffocation lose the ability to breathe due to strangulation, or smothering by bed clothes, plastic bags or similar materials.
What are the 3 types of asphyxia?
Suffocation subdivides in smothering, choking, and confined spaces/entrapment/vitiated atmosphere. Strangulation includes three separate forms: ligature strangulation, hanging, and manual strangulation.
What 3 things can cause asphyxia?
Causes of asphyxiationDrowning. Drowning is when a person can't breathe because they've inhaled water. ... Chemical asphyxia. Chemical asphyxia involves inhaling a substance that cuts off the body's oxygen supply. ... Anaphylaxis. ... Asthma. ... Airway blocked with foreign object. ... Strangulation. ... Incorrect body positioning. ... Seizure.More items...•
What happens to the body during asphyxiation?
Asphyxia is a breathing impairment that occurs when there is insufficient oxygen in the body. This results in decreased delivery of oxygen to the brain and can cause a person to become unconscious or die.
What are the types of asphyxia?
We propose to classify asphyxia into four main categories: suffocation, strangulation, mechanical asphyxia, and complicated asphyxia. Suffocation includes smothering and choking as well as confined spaces, entrapment, and vitiated atmosphere.
What is the difference between suffocation and asphyxiation?
Asphyxiation can occur when a substance, such as carbon dioxide, interferes with the oxygenation of tissue. Suffocation can occur when the air supply to the body is blocked from entering the body. Unfortunately, the results can be the same - death.
How do you know if asphyxiation is cause of death?
There are non-specific physical signs used to attribute death to asphyxia. These include visceral congestion via dilation of the venous blood vessels and blood stasis, petechiae, cyanosis and fluidity of the blood. Petechiae are tiny hemorrhages.
What is mechanical asphyxia due to thoracic abdominal compression?
The term traumatic asphyxia is used to indicate the form of death due to external mechanical compression of the thorax with consequent restriction of the respiratory movements resulting in mechanical fixation of the thorax preventing inspiration of air through the patent respiratory passages.
What is the type of mechanical asphyxia in the ligature strangulation?
Hanging is the form of asphyxia which is caused by suspension of the body by a ligature, which encircles the neck, the constricting force being the weight of the body.
What does mechanical asphyxia due to thoracic abdominal compression mean?
Traumatic asphyxia, or Perthes's syndrome, is a medical emergency caused by an intense compression of the thoracic cavity, causing venous back-flow from the right side of the heart into the veins of the neck and the brain.
What are the different types of mechanical asphyxia?
Mechanical asphyxia could be of following types depending upon the respiratory block. Compression/ constriction of the neck, e.g. hanging, strangulation, throttling, etc. Blocking external orifices of respiration, i.e. mouth and/or nostrils, e.g. smothering, overlying, suffocation, gagging, etc. Impaction of foreign bodies in respiratory tract, ...
What is mechanical interference?
Definition. Interference of respiration by mechanical means constitutes mechanical or violent asphyxia.
What is mechanical asphyxiation?
The term “mechanical” means some kind of physical force (like a knee) is involved, and interferes with the delivery and uptake of oxygen. “Most mechanical asphyxiants affect breathing or blood flow, the latter usually due to neck vessel or thoracic compression,” Medscape notes.
What does it mean when you are asphyxiated?
When someone’s been asphyxiated, it means their breathing has been impaired, which results in the decreased delivery of oxygen to the body’s tissues and cells. It can be fatal. It can happen traumatically when someone experiences an intense compression of “the chest area,” according to the medical definition.
Why is the neck not seen at autopsy?
The compressive pressure of the neck and back are not seen at autopsy because the pressure has been released by the time the body comes to the medical examiner's office.”. More information on what asphyxia is and what this finding means, below.
What causes asphyxia?
Cause. Situations that can cause asphyxia include but are not limited to: airway obstruction, the constriction or obstruction of airways, such as from asthma, laryngospasm, or simple blockage from the presence of foreign materials ; from being in environments where oxygen is not readily accessible : such as underwater, in a low oxygen atmosphere, ...
What is compressive asphyxia?
Compressive asphyxia (also called chest compression) is mechanically limiting expansion of the lungs by compressing the torso, preventing breathing. " Traumatic asphyxia " or "crush asphyxia" usually refers to compressive asphyxia resulting from being crushed or pinned under a large weight or force, or in a crowd crush. An example of traumatic asphyxia is a person who jacks up a car to work on it from below, and is crushed by the vehicle when the jack fails. Constrictor snakes such as boa constrictors kill through slow compressive asphyxia, tightening their coils every time the prey breathes out rather than squeezing forcefully. In cases of an adult co-sleeping with an infant ("overlay"), the heavy sleeping adult may move on top of the infant, causing compression asphyxia.
What is the medical term for a newborn who is deprived of oxygen?
Main article: Perinatal asphyxia. Perinatal asphyxia is the medical condition resulting from deprivation of oxygen ( hypoxia) to a newborn infant long enough to cause apparent harm. It results most commonly from a drop in maternal blood pressure or interference during delivery with blood flow to the infant's brain.
What causes positional asphyxia?
This occurs mostly during restraint and handcuffing situations by law enforcement, including psychiatric incidents. The weight of the restraint (s) doing the compression may contribute to what is attributed to positional asphyxia.
Why do newborns have asphyxia?
This can occur as a result of inadequate circulation or perfusion, impaired respiratory effort, or inadequate ventilation. There has long been a scientific debate over whether newborn infants with asphyxia should be resuscitated with 100% oxygen or normal air.
What causes oxygen deficiency?
Other causes of oxygen deficiency include but are not limited to: 1 Acute respiratory distress syndrome 2 Carbon monoxide inhalation, such as that from a car exhaust and the smoke's emission from a lighted cigarette: carbon monoxide has a higher affinity than oxygen to the hemoglobin in the blood's red blood corpuscles, bonding with it tenaciously, and, in the process, displacing oxygen and preventing the blood from transporting oxygen around the body 3 Contact with certain chemicals, including pulmonary agents (such as phosgene) and blood agents (such as hydrogen cyanide) 4 Drowning 5 Drug overdose 6 Exposure to extreme low pressure or vacuum from spacesuit damage (see space exposure) 7 Hanging, whether suspension or short drop hanging 8 Self-induced hypocapnia by hyperventilation, as in shallow water or deep water blackout and the choking game 9 Inert gas asphyxiation 10 Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, or primary alveolar hypoventilation, a disorder of the autonomic nervous system in which a patient must consciously breathe; although it is often said that persons with this disease will die if they fall asleep, this is not usually the case 11 Respiratory diseases 12 Sleep apnea 13 A seizure which stops breathing activity 14 Strangling 15 Breaking the wind pipe 16 Prolonged exposure to chlorine gas
Can asphyxia cause death?
Asphyxia can cause coma or death.
What are the symptoms of asphyxia?
The classical signs of asphyxia mentioned (petechial hemorrhages of the conjunctivae, viscera and/or skin, cerebral and/or pulmonary edema, visceral congestion, the fluidity of the blood) have been used in the diagnosis of asphyxial death for many years.
What are the criteria for positional asphyxia?
Therefore, the current criteria for positional asphyxia are based on the obstruction of normal gas exchange caused by the body position, the impossibility to move to another position, and the exclusion of other causes of death. The forensic medical examination must also be started at the scene of the incident.
What causes partial airway obstruction?
A certain restricted posture of the neck (e.g., hyperflexion or hyperextension) can cause partial or complete airway obstruction. [7] Lastly, the compression or flexion of the torso reduces total lung volume, functional residual capacity and pulmonary expansion, eventually making breathing ineffective.
What causes increased pressure on the diaphragm?
Interventions: In a head-down position, gravitation and mechanical forces lead to an increased pressure on the diaphragm from the weight of the abdominal organs. Abdominal breathing, and later, chest breathing were hindered by the raised diaphragm and the difference between abdominal and breathing pressures.
Is positional asphyxia a rare disease?
Positional asphyxia is a rare cause of sudden death and a difficult diagnos is, based mostly on the circumstances of the incident, along with particular external and internal findings, frequent in asphyxia (signs of sudden death).
