Citation

Bielefeld L, Rupp W, Pollak S, Thierauf A. Rechtsmedizin 2013; 23(2): 108-113.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00194-013-0871-z

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Accidental non-autoerotic cases of hanging in adults are uncommon in the absence of mechanical fixation. Examples are strangulation by the victims' own clothing after becoming entangled in an elevated fixed point of suspension as well as falling into an open noose, into the fork of a tree branch, onto a tightened rope (e.g. clothes line) or onto the edge of a piece of furniture. In the present case a 75-year-old woman was found dead in the cellar with her body hanging in a noose. There was no evidence of suicidal tendencies. The circumstances on site, the case history and the autopsy findings were indicative of an accident. In the cellar many ropes and hoses which formed open nooses were found hanging from an iron bar and had been there for a long period of time. It is presumed that the woman's head became accidentally entangled in one of the nooses when she bent down to pick potatoes out of a net. On turning away she could have been pulled back by the noose and fallen down which caused the noose to tighten due to her body weight. In this position it was virtually impossible for the woman to rescue herself. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Language: de

Keywords

Accidents; human; Suicide; female; aged; autopsy; case report; Cause of death; article; Forensic medicine; falling; accidental death; Reconstruction; body hanging