Author(s): Maricla Marrone, Luigi Buongiorno, Giuseppe Strisciullo, Giovanni Cappelli, Stefano Dugheri, Francesco Vinci, Alessandra Stellacci
COVID-19 pandemic has psychological and social effects that arise in the present and may arise in the future. There have been already many cases of COVID-19 related suicides in the US, UK, Italy, Germany, Bangladesh, India and other countries.
Fatal poisoning by toxic gases occurs mostly in accidental or occupational fatalities but also in suicidal events. In the forensic practice, nitrogen inhalation fatalities are very rare. In the presented case a 47-yr-old man committed suicide with a handmade device: a breathing tent made from a plastic water bag clung to his neck and that covered his face, connected by the tube to a valve on a large cylinder of industrial nitrogen gas. There was also a solved Rubik’s cube besides the body. His parents told the police that he had been depressed and in the last time he complained about worsening of symptoms due to COVID 19 pandemic.
In scientific literature there are only two similar cases to the one described in this article.
In conclusion, since suffocating gases do not leave specific autopsy findings and nitrogen is a normal constituent of the blood gases, postmortem toxicological studies could be inefficacious to determine the cause and manner of death. In a case involving nitrogen gas inhalation there is the need of thorough investigations of the scene as well as of the circumstances surrounding the death evaluating also a creative way to commit suicide