Firefighter Autopsy Protocol - US Fire Administration - Federal ...

■ Firefighter Autopsy Protocol
■ 35 ■
I: Background ■
lowering of the blood ethanol concentration to insignificant or undetectable levels. This study of 75
autopsied persons from whom both blood and subdural ethanol levels were obtained, shows the
usefulness of the subdural ethanol level, especially where there is a prolonged or unknown posttraumatic
time interval. Use of such a test is recommended in these situations.
Budd RD.
J Chromatogr.1982 Dec 3;252:315-8.
Ethanol levels in postmortem body fluids.
Chao TC, Lo DS.
Institute of Science and Forensic Medicine, Singapore.
Am J Forensic Med Pathol.1993 Dec;14(4):303-8.
Relationship between postmortem blood and vitreous humor ethanol levels.
The relationship between the blood to vitreous humor ethanol ratios (B/V) and the corresponding
urine to blood ethanol ratios (U/B) of 200 postmortem cases were found to be bimodal in nature.
Using the U/B ratio of 1.20 as a demarcation below which early absorption prevails, the results
in the early absorption phase gave an average B/V ratio of 1.29, a range from 0.71 to 3.71, and a
relatively large standard deviation of 0.57, whereas the results in the other phases (late absorption
and elimination) gave an average B/V ratio of 0.89, a spread from 0.32 to 1.28, and a standard
deviation of 0.19. It would appear that the blood ethanol levels can be estimated using B = 1.29 V for
early absorption phase cases and B = 0.89 V for cases in subsequent phases. The former relationship
would underestimate the blood ethanol levels in cases of very early absorption phase and the later
overestimate the levels of late elimination cases. The ethanol distribution results in cases of fatal
road traffic accidents and suicides by falling, in which 69% of the deceased sustained some form of
head injury, were found to be similar to those of other postmortem cases. The observations reflect
that vitreous humor, being reasonably protected, is likely to survive certain traumatic deaths and be
available for postmortem ethanol investigation. The U/B ethanol ratios recorded in this work had an
average of 1.29, a range from 0.19 to 5.19, and a standard deviation of 0.48.
Coe JI, Sherman RE.
J Forensic Sci.1970 Apr;15(2):185-90.
Comparative study of postmortem vitreous humor and blood alcohol.
de Lima IV, Midio AF.
University of Sao Paulo, Medicolegal Institute, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Brazil.
Forensic Sci Int.1999 Dec 20;106(3):157-62.
Origin of blood ethanol in decomposed bodies.
Problems related to blood contamination by other postmortem fluids in decomposed bodies (DB)
make the interpretation of medicolegal blood alcohol levels (B EtOH) a very difficult task. So the
aim of this paper is to show the utilization of vitreous humor (VH) as the biological fluid for an
unequivocal determination of ethanol origin in DB for forensic purposes. Alcohol was determined in
VH, blood (chest fluid-CF) and urine (Ur) collected from 27 DB in different states of putrefaction. A
simple head-space gas-chromatographic method was used. In fifteen cases alcohol was found to be of
endogenous production due to its absence in VH. In the twelve remainders, alcohol was detected in