St. Louis man’s death attributed to shooting 35 years prior [More]
Who treated him the first time?
And he died 10 days after being admitted and it took the Medical Examiner to find it afterward?
[Via bondmen]
2 thoughts on “Is There a Doctor in the House?”
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Shades of James “HCI” Brady.
This is a common thing for us Medical Examiners, called a “delayed homicide.” The idea is that the cause of death is complication of something that happened years ago. The classic example is a man who is shot in the spine and becomes paraplegic. Because he’s paraplegic, he’s prone to pressure sores, which are very difficult to control. Because of the pressure sores, he eventually becomes septic and gets pneumonia. He then dies of pneumonia, years after the gunshot wound.
The cause of death is classified as “Pneumona,” due to “Paraplegia” due to “Gunshot wound.” or, if you’re a lumper rather than a splitter, “Complications of remote gunshot wound.” Manner: Homicide.
These deaths are often missed by primary care docs because they focus on the immediate cause, not the “proximate” cause of death.
There are a number of possible mechanisms of death related to a remote gunshot wound to the abdomen, including bowel adhesions with strangulation of the bowel, fistula formation with sepsis, hemorrhage from a weakened blood vessel, etc.