Medico-Legal Considerations about Mechanical Asphyxia

Abstract

The word asphyxia was created, etymologically, in the Galenic era to define sudden death accompanied by cardiac arrest. Its meaning, nevertheless, has modified in time and is currently used to indicate respiratory difficulty or detention, in other words, the suppression of respiratory changes because of lack of oxygen at different levels of gaseous interchange. From this, a new term has arisen, anoxia in a broader sense, or anoxemia, narrower, to express that the fundamental meaning is the gradual reduction of oxygen in the blood, which leads to paralysis of all vital functions and firstly those of the nervous system and heart which, as noble elements, are the first to succumb to the lack of oxygen. Any external impediment which makes the entry of air to the air passages difficult is considered to be mechanic asphyxia. For the legal physician, work in this area is made more difficult from dissimilar surrounding circumstances where events occur such as from an indiscretion upon diving into water in a state of drunkenness to a simple push in order to turn the event into homicide. This also occurs with hanging, suffocation and strangulation in which the three medicallegal causes are seen: homicide, suicide and accidental death.