Postmortem computed tomography in a diving fatality

Abstract

Determination of the exact cause of death in diving casualties is usually difficult at autopsy. In such cases, formation of gas in various organs is sometimes supposed to be causative, and thus establishment of the exact distribution of gas is crucial. This is not possible by conventional autopsy techniques. In the head of a 20-year-old navy diver who died during a dive to a maximum depth of 43 m, it was possible to demonstrate the distribution of gas by cerebral computed tomography. Gas was also found by conventional X-ray examination of the right ventricle and by pulmonary angiography in the pulmonary arteries. It seems probable that the attempted resuscitation was unsuccessful because of ongoing decompression sickness.