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Thermal Trauma

المؤلف:  Max M. Houck، Jay A. Siegel

المصدر:  Fundamentals of Forensic Science

الجزء والصفحة:  166

2026-07-12

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Thermal Trauma

Extreme heat or cold also may produce death. Hypothermia is too much exposure to cold, and hyperthermia is excessive heat. Either condition can interfere with the normal physiological mechanisms that keep body temperature at about 98 °F/37 °C. In both cases, the forensic pathologist may encounter few signs at autopsy that will indicate either of those mechanisms; more commonly, external or environmental factors, as well as what is not found, may lead to this determination. Individuals in a vulnerable state of health, typically the sick, the very elderly or the very young, most often succumb to hypo- or hyperthermia. Other factors may contribute, such as alcohol, which reduces sensitivity to cold and dilates (opens) the blood vessels, speeding the cooling of the body. Hyperthermia deaths are common in elderly people in northern cities and infants left in automobiles during the summer. The inside temperature of a closed car in the sun can exceed 140 °F/60 °C and can be fatal to an infant in 10 min. Thermal burns tend to be localized; persons who die in a fire do so generally because of the inhalation of combustion products, like carbon monoxide (CO). Additionally, the level of CO in the tissues and the presence of soot in the throat tissues can deter mine whether the person was alive or dead when the fire burned him or her. A body from a burned building with 1 or 2% CO is presumed to have been dead (or at least not breathing) at the time the fire started. True deaths from thermal injuries do occur due to either massive tissue damage and/or swelling of the airway causing suffocation.