An unusual complex suicide by corrosive ingestion and stabbing

Abstract

Suicides are divided into simple and complex, the complex one referring to suicide by a combination of more than one method. In general, unplanned complex suicides occur where several different methods are used consecutively because the first method has not achieved the desired effect.

In this study, we present a unique unplanned complex suicide case where corrosive ingestion and stabbing were the suicide methods.

A 50-year-old woman was found unconscious by her husband and daughter in the garden of her house in the middle of the night. She was transported to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead upon arrival. The investigation revealed that there was a half-filled bottle of scale dissolver containing nitric acid in the kitchen of the house. The deceased was said to have been suffering from depression for two weeks. There were corrosive burns around the lips, on the chin and on the right side of the neck, three stab wounds and six tentative cuts above the umbilical region.

This is the first case report of unplanned complex suicide by corrosive ingestion and stabbing in the literature. It is thought that the woman first swallowed nitric acid, and after feeling unbearable pain around her epigastric region, she stabbed herself in the abdomen. A brief discussion about the methods used in this case and an overview of the complex suicide entity is presented.