Accidental autoerotic deaths between 1978 and 1997: Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical School Hannover
Introduction
A portion of autoerotic accidents results in serious injury of varying degree; many of these injuries are not recognized or not reported [1]. Fatal autoerotic accidents that are not specially designated in the cause-of-death statistics, are often found in the forensic literature in the form of case reports. These deaths are also partially labelled as suicides [7], [8], [9], [10] due to the in part unusual circumstances in which the body is found [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Homicides have also been known to be disguised as an autoerotic accident [11]. However, despite the frequent description of these accidents, little is known about their incidence.
The aim of this work was to retrospectively gather epidemiologic data and to describe the characteristics of the circumstances in which the body was found as well as autopsy results for fatal autoerotic accidents in the jurisdiction of the Institute for Legal Medicine at the Hannover Medical School between 1978 and 1997.
Section snippets
Materials and methods
All cases of legally-mediated autopsies and viewings of bodies in the Institute for Legal Medicine at the Hannover Medical School as well as the case files of district attorney’s offices were evaluated. This work considers all fatalaties occurring during autoerotic activity as accidental autoerotic deaths (AAD), regardless whether the death is natural or not.
Results
Between 1978 and 1997 the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Hannover Medical School performed 15,687 forensic examinations (autopsies, viewing of bodies). The analysis of this data revealed seventeen fatal autoerotic deaths. An autopsy was performed in 15 cases, in two cases the body was only viewed (Cases 1–17). Eleven victims died in the Hannover region, six within the jurisdiction of the Institute for Legal Medicine in the areas around Hannover. All victims were males between the ages of 16
Discussion
Since not all regions fell under the jurisdiction of the Institute for Legal Medicine of the Hannover Medical School for the entire study period, the frequency of fatal autoerotic accidents was only calculated for the City and County of Hannover. The 11 cases of autoerotic accidents occurring in this region, for which the average population was 1,127,000 over the 20 years study period, results in an incidence of 0.49 cases per million inhabitants per year. A similar or slightly higher incidence
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