Fatal positional asphyxia

Excerpt

A 64-year-old man was found dead in an unusual prone positition on the floor close to the bed in his apartment. The upper part of the body was leaning against a bedside cabinet (approximately 40 cm in height) with the head, the left arm and the right hand lying on the top of the cabinet (Fig. 1). The neck was considerably hyperextended and rotated to the left, so that the right side of the neck was pressed firmly against the upper front edge of the cabinet. The man was not wedged in a confined narrow space, for example, a space between the bed and the cabinet. Only a duvet was spread over the lower part of his body, and there were no objects that could have fixed his body position. Police investigations revealed that the man was not known to abuse illegal substances, but to consume alcoholic beverages on a daily basis. He had no previous medical history and was last seen alive 5 days earlier.

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