Petechial haemorrhages as a consequence of very short-term strangulation during suicidal fall from a height: Case reconstruction

Abstract

We present the case of a 64-year-old woman who committed suicide by jumping from the open bedroom window of her second-floor apartment. However, during a head-first fall, the victim’s head was caught perpendicularly between two parallel metal strands of wire, used for drying laundry, on the first-floor window. This led to a 180° rotation of the body around the lower part of the neck, bringing the victim’s body into the legs-first position. This chain of events also caused short-term neck strangulation, for fractions of a second or a couple of seconds, which caused rupture of the peripheral venules and apparent neck, facial and conjunctival haemorrhages, above the level of strangulation ligature – the metal strands of wire. The presented case shows that even such incomplete, very short-term neck strangulation could raise venous/capillary pressure sufficiently to cause petechial haemorrhages on the neck and face above the level of ligature.