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Death from Hypothermia during a Training Course under “Extreme Conditions”: Related to Two Cases
Author(s) -
Perich Pierre,
Tuchtan Lucile,
Bartoli Christophe,
Léonetti Georges,
PiercecchiMarti MarieDominique
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/1556-4029.12981
Subject(s) - hypothermia , anamnesis , medicine , autopsy , cause of death , time of death , intensive care medicine , medical emergency , anesthesia , pathology , disease
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.