Citation

Perich P, Tuchtan L, Bartoli C, Léonetti G, Piercecchi-Marti MD. J. Forensic Sci. 2015; 61(2): 562-565.

Affiliation

Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, EFS, ADES UMR 7268, 13916, Marseille, France.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1556-4029.12981

PMID

26551786

Abstract

Death from hypothermia following exhaustion or from various complicated pathologies is no longer a frequent cause of death among combat troops. During a training course under "extreme conditions" in the French Alps, two young African officers died. Confronted with these two clinically confirmed cases of hypothermia, the unknown anatomopathological and biological specificities associated with death from hypothermia were highlighted. In these typical and clinically confirmed cases of death from subacute exhaustion hypothermia, none of the signs revealed by the autopsy were specific. Although some recent publications have addressed the utility of postmortem biochemical markers when establishing a diagnosis, with no anamnesis, with no knowledge or analysis of the circumstances of death, and without an in situ examination of the body, it appears difficult, if not impossible, to confirm that death was caused by hypothermia.

Language: en