3. Plastic Bag Suffocation

Abstract

Suffocation by plastic bag is not common. The finding of a body at the scene of death with a plastic bag in situ could be diagnostically valuable to the pathologist. Otherwise the pathologist may be hard put to arrive at a firm opinion as to how the deceased met his/her death; in fact, in three of the cases reported in this paper, the local pathologist could not give a cause of death when the initial autopsy was performed. Plastic bags could be accidentally placed over the head; put there to help in the inhalation of volatile substances; with homicidal intention; or simply as an effective suicidal method. The object of this paper is to study the cases where bodies were found with a plastic bag over the head, and in particular the cases where the cause of death was due to plastic bag suffocation.