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. 2011 Jul;55(4):388-91.
doi: 10.4103/0019-5049.84863.

Near hanging: Early intervention can save lives

Ritika Gandhi  1 , Neeta Taneja, Paritosh Mazumder
Affiliations

Near hanging: Early intervention can save lives

Ritika Gandhi et al. Indian J Anaesth. 2011 Jul.

Abstract

Hanging is a common method of suicide/homicide in the Indian scenario. We report three successive cases of attempted suicidal hangings seen over a period of 4 months in our intensive care wards. All of them presented gasping with poor clinical status and required immediate intubation, resuscitation, assisted ventilation and intensive care treatment. None had cervical spine injury, but one patient developed aspiration pneumonia. All the three patients received standard supportive intensive care and made full clinical recovery without any neurological deficit. We conclude that the cases of near hanging should be aggressively resuscitated and treated irrespective of dismal initial presentation. This is well supported by the excellent outcomes in our cases despite their poor initial condition.

Keywords: Cerebral hypoxia; cervical spine fracture; near hanging.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared

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