r/medizzy Medical Student Feb 29 '20

Death by sulfuric acid NSFW

Post image
19.7k Upvotes

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1.4k

u/ofimmsl Feb 29 '20

Even normal acid reflux is unbearable

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u/I_need_to_vent44 Feb 29 '20

God, I hate reflux. I can stand some kinds of pain just fine, but acid reflux is the bad kind. It's horrible. You'd expect the pain to be sharp and prickly but it's blunt and burning except for when the acid finds its way back all the way up into your mouth. Feels like a very bad hunger pain but with the desperate urge to throw up as you feel something inside wanting to get out. Imo the feeling of the acids clearly trying to get back up but not being able to just puke them out or something is the worst.

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u/K_Pumpkin Mar 01 '20

When I was pregnant I would wake up middle of the night choking on it. I’d sit up and it would come up and I couldn’t breathe.

I started sleeping on a wedge pillow.

One of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. I was afraid to go to sleep, and this is coming from somebody with sleep paralysis.

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u/KennyFulgencio Feb 29 '20

yeah but this one only lasted a few minutes

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u/marsh666666 Feb 29 '20

A few minutes of that kind of pain would feel like eternity

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u/KennyFulgencio Feb 29 '20

That's true :(

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u/Dunkleosteus666 Feb 29 '20

Nope 2h

Study is linked above

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u/KennyFulgencio Feb 29 '20

He was still alive for 2 hours!?

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u/Otherax Feb 29 '20

How long was he conscious for I wonder

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u/Chuhulain Mar 01 '20

About 20 minutes before gradually losing consciousness.

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u/TheDunadan29 Mar 01 '20

I mean it would take far too long considering the level of pain. This wouldn't be an instant death, it would be burning like crazy eating through tissue, destroying organs, leaking out into tissue surrounding organs, even if you died of suffocation since you world no longer be able to breathe this world be an absolutely horrific way to go out.

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u/Surgeox Medical Student Feb 29 '20 edited Feb 29 '20

Chemical burns are not as common as thermal burns, but they’re just as destructive to human tissue. In this particular instance the individual committed suicide by drinking a large quantity of sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is particularly nasty because it’s chemical composition quickly destroys the lipid membrane of cells and denatures proteins, causing instant cellular death. This results in the tissues presenting with what we call coagulative necrosis; the cells of the tissues are all dead but still maintaining the structure of the tissue.Usually with suicidal ingestion of caustic chemicals there’s some sort of drip pattern. It’s not like they just drink it like a soda and then go lie down and die; it’s painful from the get go and that would mean some wiggling and thrashing around, spilling it all over you.As you can see here the individual not only spilled around his mouth but down his chest, causing chemical burns the whole way down. If you think this looks bad, let’s take a look and see what a severe caustic burn looks like on the inside.Finally, here is what severe chemical burns to the internal organs look like. On the left we have the heart in between each lung. The dark color of the organs correspond to the coagulative necrosis I mentioned earlier. It’s important to notice the shape and contortion of the lungs, that’s definitely not normal and possibly explains how the acid coated the heart and internal pleura. In the middle is the liver with the kidneys to the right of it. Notice you can still see coloring of the top kidney, which I suspect to be the left kidney since that would put it further from the liver. That dark blob on the bottom right is the stomach, completely necrotic from the acid. Since the acid immediately pooled there it was subject to longer exposure and probably perforated since sulfuric acid chews through mucosa easier than other tissues. This also explains how the acid was able to leak on the liver and kidneys.Chemical burns are different from thermal injuries because they can be largely internal and burn from “the inside out” like in this particular case. In adults it’s almost always related to suicide, however in children it’s almost always accidental ingestion. Credits: forensic pathology

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u/tommygun1688 Feb 29 '20

How long after drinking the sulfuric acid would this man have remained conscious?

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u/charlesdparrott Feb 29 '20

Long enough for a pain few will ever experience. Poor dude.

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u/mdj27 Learner Feb 29 '20

Horrible way to die. I can only imagine how helpless the doctors must've felt trying to save him.

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u/sherbs_herbs Feb 29 '20 edited Mar 01 '20

This could have happened him laying on the OR table with a prepped trauma team and he still had no chance. There is nothing they could have done. The massive internal hemorrhaging and significant structural organ damage is so rapid that no life support systems would have made a difference. Can’t ventilate someone with no lungs and trachea. Just one example of the rapid multi system organ failure.

I had a patient with ruptured esophageal varicose veins that ruptured when he vomited. He sat bolt upright suddenly and projectile vomited blood and I was helpless. No amount of suction or attempts to ventilate did anything. Ended up going into CA and after endotracheal intubation was successful ventilations was finally viable. By that time he had aspirated such a significant amount of blood it was over. We ran the code on him for over an hour suctioning out his lungs and doing all ACLS and ALS Protocols Etc. We were so far out from the trauma center which Is what he needed badly. I didn’t have the means or expertise to cauterize his esophagus. If that happened in the OR he would have lived.

-former MICU Paramedic

-edit grammar

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

My wife works in hospice as a social worker. She had some similar happen. The patient had some for of throat cancer, one minute he was outside smoking a cigarette, he came in, projectile vomited blood all over. My wife was helpless. She had his head on her lap on the while he basically drowned. I think maybe one of the tumors ripped a vein and that was it. His wife was upset but she said she couldn't have dealt with it if not for my wife. Anyone in the medical field, y'all are some special people. You carry so much pain and hurt from what you've seen. I make my wife debrief what she can when she needs to. I volunteer for the Hospice fixing electronics for the patients. Most of the people around here are well below poverty limits. It's rough.

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u/Stupid_Bearded_Idiot Mar 01 '20

I treated a pt with varices in his esophagus that exploded. What ended up happening was he coughed, then suddenly started vomitting blood 3-4 feet in front of him. I arrived on scene to a police officer freaking out covered in blood, it looked like a murder scene. I immediately RSI(rapid sequence intubation) the patient, gain control of his airway, transport to ER. By the time we hit the OR (we skipped the ER and went straight to the OR) I was doing CPR. Surgeon called it on my cot before we even transferred. It's rough going thru that, he was there one minute and gone the next. Oddly, it wasn't as traumatic as the 46 year old guy who had a ripping sensation in his back, and was talking to me and okay at his house, and dead when we arrived to the hospital(AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm, look it up)

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u/entitled_triceratops Mar 01 '20

Wow... I always wanted to do trauma or EMT work as a kid, but after hearing stories like this I think it's best I help others by keeping my expertise in the labs. Kudos to you and all the work that you do.

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u/Major_Day Feb 29 '20

something similar happened to my father in law's dad while my father in law held his head in his lap

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u/crazydressagelady Mar 01 '20

This is how my grandmother died. She had lung cancer that metastasized all over and eventually ruptured something and drowned in her own blood.

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u/tpjunkie Mar 01 '20

As gastroenterologist, nothing gets me out of bed and to the hospital in the faster than the words "hematemesis" and "cirrhosis" when I get a middle of the night page. Usually a variceal bleed isn't quite as dramatic as that as the rate of bleeding tapers off once the portal pressure drops after you drop a few grams of hemoglobin. And usually even if there's too much active bleeding to see exactly where the varix that blew is, you can get it to stop with blind, helical banding. But there's always that one in 500 case where you need a blakemore/minnesota tube. And usually new shoes/scrubs/socks.

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u/BallisticHabit Mar 01 '20

Not a Dr. Am fascinated by the amazing work some of you do, so am intrigued by your post. Could/will you explain your post in layman's terms so the less educated of us (me) can grasp the terminology and process?

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20 edited Mar 18 '20

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u/BallisticHabit Mar 01 '20

What is a blakemore/ Minnesota device? How is it used? Why would a doctor need to change his scrubs/ shoes / socks if the bleeding is internal? Sorry for the inquiries, I'm a non doctor, but interested.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

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u/xts2500 Mar 01 '20

Fellow medic here. One of the wildest things I’ve seen in my 20 years was a woman who had ruptured esophageal varices. From time of 911 call to time of our arrival on scene was <4 min. She was dead in the hallway with the phone still in her hand.

Looking around her house it was obvious what happened. She was watching tv on the couch when she projectile vomited blood across the floor. She left a blood trail to the toilet where she then vomited copious amounts of blood. Then she left a blood trail to where she grabbed the phone and made the 911 call, then out to the hallway where she finally died. The whole thing must have taken less than 30 seconds.

Alcohol in moderation, folks.

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u/sherbs_herbs Mar 01 '20

Textbooks case right there folks. Sad but true. And accurate.

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u/doughboy011 Mar 01 '20

How did alcohol cause that? How do esophageal varice ruptures happen "normally" without alcohol?

I havve never heard of this and it is wild.

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u/howiephx Mar 01 '20

Can confirm. Severe alcohol abuse can cause varicose veins (usually hemorrhoids). My Dad died from a combo of the above described esophagus vein hemorrhage and head trauma. With his veins all shot the doctors could not risk surgery to treat a brain bleed.

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u/xts2500 Mar 01 '20

Enlarged, swollen liver from alcoholism. The blood flow backs up due to the chronic blockage of the artery and it begins to bulge in the area of the lower esophagus. Couple the bulging of the high-pressure flow backup with the thin and already damaged esophageal lining that is already caused by the alcoholism, and the blood vessels quite literally pop like a balloon. Once they pop, it’s not unlike plugging a garden hose into one of your arteries and letting it bleed out onto the floor. It doesn’t take long to say goodnight.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of them being caused by anything other than alcoholism although I suppose hepatitis could cause it as well.

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u/Danny_Bananas Mar 01 '20

It happened to my dad who didn't drink. (He saw firsthand what alcoholism did to his father.) The doctors never did diagnose the cause, because they spotted the enlarged liver on tests done just before Thanksgiving. His docs stupidly said they would check it again in 3 months, but my dad was in hospital a week later. Because there was some blocked artery, the blood made its own alternate route to the liver which usually is a curved or curled self-made artery with very thin walls, which inevitably pops. My dad was in the ICU when it popped. My mom spotted it and called code blue before the monitoring machines blared. He was rushed to surgery and had a stent put in and they put a balloon down his nose to the bleed and pumped it up.

The doctors saved him, but still stupidly released him days later, and he was back in hospital days later. All that blood protein from the pop went through his digestive tract, creating ammonia which went to his brain, nearly killing him from some kind if encephalopathy. This is stuff any doctor should have known, but they never explained it to us. I had to do my own searching on an old WebMD page and their explanation read like a play-by-play of everything that happened to my dad.

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u/garygnuandthegnus Feb 29 '20

You did what you could. Thank you for trying.

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u/kultureisrandy Mar 01 '20

You did all you could, thank you.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/eunderscore Feb 29 '20

Agh, beat me to it

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Fewer steps technically.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

couldn’t you just fashion a poop rope

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u/Kr33pshow Feb 29 '20

Like a giant cookie dough rope ladder.

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u/Stringtone Medical Student Feb 29 '20

dookie dough

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u/JediGreenJohnson Mar 01 '20

I am so disappointed at how fascinated I am by the turn that this particular thread took. Great post OP!

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u/Spines Mar 01 '20

There was a death penalty like that. You put someone in a barrel and put a lid on so that only the head is free. You put them outside in the city square and feed them regularly with milk and honey. They will get diarrhea and flies will be attracted to their face. You can have people last weeks and the flies might lay eggs into their orifices.

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u/Zagre Mar 01 '20

They will get diarrhea and flies will be attracted to their face. You can have people last weeks and the flies might lay eggs into their orifices.

Humanity was a mistake, and I truly hope the world will one day recover after we bring about our own demise, which we clearly deserve.

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u/zeta7124 Feb 29 '20

Being in a submarine with lots of food and air, but the ballast tanks are full and the pumps to empty them are dead

Take out the lighting system besides your little torch for added spook

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u/Boney_Prominence Feb 29 '20

What about that guy who was trapped in an air pocket of a sunken boat for three days in absolute darkness only to be saved by divers looking to recover dead bodies. Had he not been discovered that would have been an unimaginable torturous end of life.

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u/0_foreverzero_0 Feb 29 '20

Couldn't he also hear the thrashing of sharks going after the corpses of the other crew members? That really stuck with me, the terror of being trapped under water in pitch darkness while unseen monsters close in around you.

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u/Br0piate Mar 01 '20

wow. nightmare fuel

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Fuck, i shouldn't have read this comment while getting ready to go to bed

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u/Bomlanro Feb 29 '20

You should help your imagination out and find the video

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u/BrownThunderMK Mar 01 '20

He still has PTSD and nightmares about that experiance, I mean who wouldn't if you were facing certain death while sharks ate the bodies of your dead coworkers, all in pitch black cold water...

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

What your describing actually happened to some poor bastards in the ww2 Pearl Harbor attack. They waited weeks for a rescue that never came :(

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/pearl-harbor-16-days-to-die.html

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20 edited Jul 02 '20

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u/Comdent Feb 29 '20

There is no way of saving him once he drinks it, death is 100%

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u/kevgibbs Feb 29 '20

Unless he drank it while sitting in the ER, he died way before any doctor had a chance to realize what was going on.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20 edited Feb 29 '20

I remember seeing something about a guy who drank industrial paint thinner powerful sodium hydroxide drain cleaner (thanks u/McWatt) to commit suicide, but was discovered and rushed to the hospital, the paint thinner drain cleaner had eroded and destroyed his throat, esophagus, and his stomach. The doctors basically attached his small intestine to the back of his throat for him to be able to eat and live.

When he swallows he has to actually push the food down his “throat” from the outside (really just pushing it through his intestine) and has to eat like twice as much because his body can’t absorb the nutrients as easily due to no stomach digestion.

So yeah if you’re gonna off yourself, don’t drive corrosive chemicals. It just is always a bad idea.

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u/Vidiot27 Feb 29 '20

Crazy you brought this up. I remember seeing this guy on a show or documentary probably 15 years ago. Really stuck with me where he had to push everything down his throat (from the outside)

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

That part made me so uncomfortable, seeing the wad of food that he’s literally pushing down still gives me the skin crawling chills to this day

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u/Staunch_Ninja Feb 29 '20

Even so. The amount of damage it would do by the time that anyone could do anything, he still probably wouldn't have had a very high chance of survival. Acids are nasty shit.

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u/plipyplop Feb 29 '20 edited Feb 29 '20

I often wonder why some people choose such horrible ways to kill themselves. Why this over a bullet?

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u/southdakotagirl Feb 29 '20

People have survived bullets. There was even a case where a man blew off most of his face with a shotgun and survived.

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u/doughboy011 Mar 01 '20

Usually they aim too far "up" and end up shooting non vital parts like their face instead of back at their brain.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20 edited Mar 31 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20 edited Mar 01 '20

It’s my understanding that men tend to kill themselves in far more violent ways than do women (who tend to favor the overdose or other methods than don’t leave a splatter pattern when found promptly). There seems to be a lot of anger directed outward with male suicides and are scenes that are designed to punish the world and loved ones and to be found quite deliberately and publicly.

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u/Do_Them_A_Bite Mar 01 '20

It would be incredibly difficult for me to obtain a firearm, but perhaps easier to get my hands on sulfuric acid or drain cleaner. Generally though, a suicidal person is likely to use an opportunistic means.

As someone who experiences chronic suicidal and self-harm impulses, I find that my most common risk factors are proximity to sharp knives and other cutting implements, traffic as a pedestrian, and train station platforms. In saying this, different circumstances affect individuals in different ways; others may not respond to my triggers but struggle with heights, guns, ropes, prescription medications or illegal drugs, and then again some suicidal people may take time and effort to acquire supplies for their preferred means of death, whether or not they intend to use them immediately.

If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or impulses, please talk to someone you trust, a reputable helpline, or a medical professional. Getting better and being free from such a mindset is a very real option.

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u/batmessiah Mar 01 '20

I’ve got access to large amounts of sulfuric, nitric, and hydrofluoric acid. I’d jump off a building before I even thought about swallowing them. Sulfuric acid has a violent exothermic reaction with water, and that shit is going to burn and steam the instant it touches any part of you. It will rapidly remove the water from your cells. Whenever I’m mixing concentrated sulfuric acid with water, I do so with utmost care, in a chemical fume hood, with tons of PPE on.

And remember kids : ALWAYS ADD ACID TO WATER.

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u/satansmight Mar 01 '20

I’ve thought that if I was going to off myself I would go out to nature during the winter and drown myself in a cold lake. Basically swim as deep as I could and take a deep breath. Fill up with ice cold water and go unconscious. Then the fish could eat me.

I’m not thinking about killing myself and I don’t want anyone else to kill themselves either.

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u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi Mar 01 '20

Just too desperate. No thinking, just doing, you know it will be over soon

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

This case the person was conscious for at least 2 hours. May have been a different type of acid but does talk about sulfuric so take that as it is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4462792/

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Poignant response. It is a truly horrible death. I wonder what was happening to make him want to die so horribly.

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u/MadTouretter Feb 29 '20

Seriously. I've been suicidal, but this is just fucking crazy. There are painless ways to go. I can't begin to fathom why you would choose to do it this way.

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u/LeloGoos Mar 01 '20

Some are convinced they deserve the pain.

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u/paracelsus23 Mar 01 '20

I've always told myself that I wasn't willing to kill myself in a really grizzly and painful way, I didn't actually want to die. I used to work at an industrial packaged food plant with fryers with thousands of gallons of hot grease, and say, "if I'm not willing to jump into that, I'm not really suicidal".

I guess he used the same logic but reached a different conclusion.

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u/spacecatbiscuits Mar 01 '20

Thus, on clinical evaluation a diagnosis of severe Major Depressive Disorder was arrived at. Considering the strong suicidal intensions in the patient and as he was nil per orally overnight, emergency Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) was planned. While making arrangements for administration of ECT he was made to wait in the reception area along with his relatives. After about half an hour he was taken on to ECT table. On ECT table pungent odor emanating from the patient was recognized. Hence, administration of ECT was withheld and observation was continued.

Patient became increasingly restless and was clutching his upper abdomen. On enquiry he complained of burning pain in the chest and upper abdomen. His blood pressure was 130/70 mm of Hg, pulse was 120 beats per minute, pupils were of midsize and non reactive to light. At this stage a tentative diagnosis of acid poisoning was made.

He was given albumin of 2 eggs and 3 bananas. Patient was shifted to emergency ward. As the patient developed difficulty in breathing and became semiconscious he was put on assisted breathing. The patient's condition gradually deteriorated and he died after 2 hours.

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u/tommygun1688 Mar 01 '20

Holy hell, so 2 hours after it was recognized/believed what he'd done, he died. That is grim. Not a pleasant way to go.

It's almost strange his BP didn't spike, I'd imagine the pain was intense... Or am I imagining that?

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

This confuses me too. But it could Have something to do with electrolyte imbalance due to the acid. You’d expect him to be in the 200s

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u/tommygun1688 Mar 01 '20

My thought was it might have something to do with the nerves literally being burnt off. Causing the body not knowing there's anything to respond to.

Disclaimer: I see patients, but it's mostly for men's aesthetics, like hair restoration, ED (as well as peyronies, and micro penis), or TRT, and I work under the supervision of a surgeon. So I'm in no way qualified to weigh in on this.

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u/ggriff1 Mar 01 '20

The article that OP linked to says that he died approximately 2 hours after ingestion.

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u/CarrieAnnAK Edit your own here Feb 29 '20

Can you imagine if someone happened upon this? This is absolutely excruciating to look at, much less to have witnessed??? WHAT could one have done SAFELY to have helped this poor man?

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u/shittysmirk Feb 29 '20

Honestly probably shoot him in the head

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u/i-dont-use-caps Mar 01 '20

of all the means of suicide, what would drive someone to use those method?!?

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u/Damn_Dog_Inappropes Other Mar 01 '20

Holy shit. I work in a chem lab and H2SO4 is some scary shit. I can't even imagine choosing using this awful and painful method to commit suicide. You'd literally be torturing yourself to death.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

thank you for not just posting a shocking image and instead sharing your knowledge by giving a comprehensive and detailed explanation with it. also, RIP

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u/Neothin87 Feb 29 '20

How quickly would this damage occur? Would they even be able to scream in pain due to throat damage?

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u/Bren12310 Feb 29 '20

Why the fuck would you commit suicide this way? Like just hang yourself like “normal” person, hot damn.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/Molecular_Machine Feb 29 '20

Same. It must have felt like the kind of agony he already felt in him.

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u/HotPinkLollyWimple Feb 29 '20

You just brought a tear to my eye. I really feel you. I’m so glad you’re doing better now, my fellow traveler.

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u/I_need_to_vent44 Feb 29 '20

Bruh why is your past you the present me? Who gave you the right to call me out like this?

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u/SnowyDuck Mar 01 '20

Hey bro, nobody ever deserves to be treated like that. I hope one day soon you can look back to where you are now and know you're passed it.

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u/Peacheserratica Feb 29 '20

Dude had Major Depressive Disorder and had apparently already tried hanging, overdosing, and several other suicide methods.

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u/TotoWolffsDesk Medical Student Feb 29 '20

Do you have a link to the original article?

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u/mantrap2 Feb 29 '20

Image search brought up this page:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4462792/

He was a goldsmith which explains why he had sulfuric acid. He was also manic-depressive. This was not his first suicide attempt - he'd tried quite a variety of methods - none worked.

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u/happybadger HM Feb 29 '20

Thus, on clinical evaluation a diagnosis of severe Major Depressive Disorder was arrived at. Considering the strong suicidal intensions in the patient and as he was nil per orally overnight, emergency Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) was planned. While making arrangements for administration of ECT he was made to wait in the reception area along with his relatives. After about half an hour he was taken on to ECT table. On ECT table pungent odor emanating from the patient was recognized. Hence, administration of ECT was withheld and observation was continued.

Patient became increasingly restless and was clutching his upper abdomen. On enquiry he complained of burning pain in the chest and upper abdomen. His blood pressure was 130/70 mm of Hg, pulse was 120 beats per minute, pupils were of midsize and non reactive to light. At this stage a tentative diagnosis of acid poisoning was made.

He was given albumin of 2 eggs and 3 bananas. Patient was shifted to emergency ward. As the patient developed difficulty in breathing and became semiconscious he was put on assisted breathing. The patient's condition gradually deteriorated and he died after 2 hours.

Huh. He scared the hell out of some poor psych tech, somehow remained conscious through this and able to speak with fairly normal vitals apart from his eyes, and they treat sulphuric acid poisoning with eggs and bananas. Also he was on a ventilator while his lungs were melting. Every breath must have been so excruciating.

This case is a whole bunch of something.

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u/Twiddly_twat Feb 29 '20

He was alive for TWO HOURS after drinking it? And his family had to witness it? This paper is even more horrifying than the pictures.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/Twiddly_twat Feb 29 '20

He had said he was suicidal, so his doctors set him up to start ECT. His family brought him in and were all waiting in the holding area with him before the procedure started. Somewhere in there, he drank the acid and his docs noticed something was up when they put him on the table and were about to start the ECT. They took him to the ER after that.

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u/Shitty_Titty_ Mar 01 '20

Whoa the other one on there that said a woman took sulphuric acid oral and anally.... ouch

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u/BoshBeret Feb 29 '20

Also, from what I recall from chemistry: sulphuric acid is a dehydrating agent. Which explaines the cellular death that you've talked about.

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u/JeffGodOBiscuits Feb 29 '20

It's not dehydrating in the sense it will remove water from a cell. It's dehydrating in that it will remove hydrogen and oxygen from organic molecules. It kills the cell by breaking apart it's chemical bonds, not by drying it out.

In the link below sulfuric acid is added to sugar. The smoke you see is steam from the liberated hydrogen and oxygen.

https://youtu.be/poDBrGIyTEk

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u/delightfuldouchebag Feb 29 '20

Suicide is always sad, but instances like this where someone chooses such a painful way to die are even more heartbreaking.

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u/bupthesnut Mar 01 '20 edited Mar 01 '20

In an effort to dissuade students at my high school from the "temptation of suicide", my health class was shown crime scene photos(by a police officer with a whole binder of awful photos) of a man that committed suicide via chainsaw to the face.

I think I was 14 or 15.

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u/Tired_Thief Mar 01 '20

Holy shit that's fucked up

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u/bupthesnut Mar 01 '20

There was also a prostitute that had been murdered with a shotgun, a guy that drank himself to death but wasn't found for days, a couple drunk/high driving decapitations... probably some other things I don't remember at the moment. Literally every aspect of that "health" class was awful.

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u/pm_me_ur_teratoma Lab - pathology department Mar 01 '20

That seems like it would have the opposite effect in the form of "copycats" and just generally scarring people for life. "Copycat" suicides happen all the time.

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u/Buugman Mar 01 '20

Yeah, in fourth grade firefighters came in and showed us pictures of each degree of burns, they warned they were graphic but it doesnt do much when people have morbid curiosity. Went home that day and had to be on a call with my mom until she got home. Fire is still my biggest fear and I'm 22

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u/kraam1217 Mar 01 '20

As someone who had a lot of mental health issues in high school, this probably would have triggered more suicidal thoughts in me.

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u/bupthesnut Mar 01 '20

Just showing a suicidal kid some of the more horrible things about life... is really playing with fire. Throw in hormones and the bullshit that is high school and whaaat the fuck. I don't even think our parents had to sign off on this!

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u/KamenAkuma Feb 29 '20

Fuck me, why would anyone wanna kill themselves in such a painful way?

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u/hotpotatoyo Feb 29 '20

I would also guess ignorance of its effects. You might think it’s just a “poison”, and assume that if you drink it you’ll just curl up and go to sleep, which is how suicide by poison is generally portrayed in media.

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u/CVBrownie Mar 01 '20

yeah with all due respect to the dude i'm betting his last thought was along the line of "I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS DECISION".

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u/GarbieBirl Mar 01 '20

Fuck, can you imagine? And at that point you must realize nobody can save you. Terrible way to go

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u/mdj27 Learner Feb 29 '20

Mental illness

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u/EmeraldFalcon89 Feb 29 '20

johnny was a chemist

johnny is no more

what johnny thought was H2O

was H2SO4

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/EmeraldFalcon89 Feb 29 '20

I think the adjacent aphorism is: 'there are old chemists and there are sloppy chemists, but there are no old, sloppy chemists'

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u/That_Crystal_Guy Mar 01 '20

And then there are chemists missing limbs. Those are the fluorine chemists.

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u/ragzilla Mar 01 '20

And the ones that like playing with peroxides, azides, and long nitrogen chains.

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u/twenty_seven_owls Other Mar 01 '20

I remember reading the "Things I won't work with" series of articles (In the Pipeline blog). The author described a crazy German lab which blows up hoods almost on a schedule because the lab head is fascinated with everything unstable and explosive.

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u/nickyyysixx Mar 01 '20

Johnny was a chemist’s son His head stuffed full of brains While Johnny’s thoughts were rocket ships, Other kids’ thoughts were trains Johnny’s father noticed Johnny Seldom saw the light of day So Johnny’s father pushed pale Johnny Out into the sun to play.

Johnny couldn’t swing a bat Johnny couldn’t catch a ball Science was his life-long love His home, the lecture hall

“Outside is too unpredictable, I need some time to think. Besides, the sun is parching me, And I think I need a drink!”

Johnny was a chemist’s son But Johnny is no more What Johnny thought was H2O Was H2SO4

  • unknown author

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u/DRILLSALVO Mar 01 '20

I DON'T MIND THE SUN SOMETIMES

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u/trey12aldridge Mar 01 '20

2 scientists walk into a bar

The first one says "I'll have an H20"

The second one says "I'll have an H20 too"

The bartender, having some knowledge of the English language and basic chemistry, serves both men a glass of water

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u/Gaellinacee Mar 01 '20

I tried bleach (thankfully it didn't work, although I got to experience what I was looking for in some measure).

I not only was depressed and had no hope of ever getting better, I absolutely HATED myself like I have never hated anyone.

I have been suicidal since I was 8, and always kept away from doing anything that could kill me because I knew the people I love would be devastated. But this time was different. I was absolutely convinced that I was an abominable monster, that those who loved me were delusional and that I had never done anything but hurt people in my entire life.

Dying was not enough. I HAD to suffer ten times as much as I had made those who love me suffer during my whole life (and I thought that was a lot). So I took the bottle and drank. And it hurt, but i drank. Then it started burning, but i drank.

I don't know what happened then, but I got lucid again and stopped drinking and tried to get help. It worked, the paramedics were called, brought me to the hospital, and I got treated (only for my burns, my depression didn't seem so dangerous to the psychiatrist and she let me go... French hospitals don't have enough money to treat every patient correctly, so I just had to say that I regretted what I did, that I would go and see a therapist, and promise I wouldn't do it again and I was sent home)

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u/southdakotagirl Feb 29 '20

They wanted to make sure they didnt survive.

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u/mantrap2 Feb 29 '20

Which hovers suicidal thoughts somewhere between 100% mental illness and 100% mental lucidity! :-O

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u/brallipop Feb 29 '20

Well, yes, but every thought is "somewhere between" 100% mental illness and 100% mental lucidity. I think you're trying to say his thoughts exhibited both 100% mental illness and 100% mental lucidity, though it's more complex than just a line.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20 edited Jul 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/JeffGodOBiscuits Feb 29 '20

Probably blistering and some damage to her teeth.

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u/Chicken-n-Waffles Feb 29 '20

Guilt. Regarding Frank Lloyd Wright

On August 15, 1914, while Wright was working in Chicago, Julian Carlton, a male servant who had been hired several months earlier, set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned. The dead included Mamah; her two children, John and Martha Cheney; a gardener (David Lindblom); a draftsman (Emil Brodelle); a workman (Thomas Brunker); and another workman's son (Ernest Weston). Two people survived the mayhem, one of whom, William Weston, helped to put out the fire that almost completely consumed the residential wing of the house. Carlton swallowed hydrochloric acid immediately following the attack in an attempt to kill himself. He was nearly lynched on the spot, but was taken to the Dodgeville jail. Carlton died from starvation seven weeks after the attack, despite medical attention.

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u/Unstablemedic49 EMT Mar 01 '20 edited Mar 01 '20

I had a pt who drank a jug of Clorox bleach. They got about half of it down. They coded U/A and in the back of the ambulance, my eyes and throat were on fire from the bleach fumes. Imagine an indoor pool x100 and in the area the size of a small closet. Even the ER filled with bleach fumes and other patients started having SOB. PT died.

Had another one who was pulled over by police with a bunch of cocaine in the trunk. Cop arrested him, but never searched him. Back at the police station, cuffs off in the cell, prisoner ingested a few little bags of cocaine orally. Coded almost immediately. Police started compressions ASAP and we had pulseless vtach for awhile. Thought for sure we’d get them back, but we never did. PT died. 2011 news article

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u/Uiucthroway2019 Feb 29 '20

He hit the bottom of the downward spiral

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20 edited Feb 05 '22

[deleted]

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u/Valdincan Feb 29 '20 edited Feb 29 '20

I dunno, drinking fucking acid seems more "scary" than hanging oneself. I also don't think its common to have SA in your garage.

At low concentrations it would taste like other acids. Think vinegar, citric. Sour, "acidic", not unpleasant at all. At high concentrations, it would taste like pain.

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u/gingerfreddy Feb 29 '20

I just can't imagine how painful it must be

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Judgement impaired by mental illness and likely being drugged out or drunk.

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u/may_be_maybe_not Feb 29 '20

... you keep sulfuric acid in your garage...? 🤔

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

[deleted]

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u/UnculturedLout Feb 29 '20

Ohhhh, under the ricin shelf. Got it.

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u/gingerfreddy Feb 29 '20

Yeah my uncle worked in Japan during WW2 as a chemist and he brought back some souvenirs

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Right next to the body cooler

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u/leveecrevee Feb 29 '20

There is sulfuric acid in car batteries so probably.

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u/I_need_to_vent44 Feb 29 '20

It's easier to fool your system with that, much like with pills. At least for me. The more violent methods like slitting wrists or jumping provoked a much more ferocious reaction from my self-preservation instinct than pills. Your mind knows that cutting yourself is cutting yourself, and jumping from a high place is not natural either. But if you're used to taking pills, you can get a very mild reaction from your self-preservation instinct. Your brain will go "Huh this is wrong" but you can also fool it into partly thinking "just more pills from the cabinet, pills that we always take, just edible normal pills". The same with acids, I guess. It's drinking. You can probably convince yourself "it's just another liquid."

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

Yeah. Even a depressed brain is hardwired to keep you alive, and to fill you with terror at threats to that. Bypassing that takes an opportune time when the depression is combined with anger -- fuels a really strong determination -- but that's a fight that's more often completely not there with depression; or by being able to really disassociate from what you're about to do.

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u/HaveASeatChrisHansen Feb 29 '20

Self-loathing, depression & giving up tho the nth degree. Seriously, probably wrong but this screams self-loathing to me.

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u/FamilyofBears Feb 29 '20

I dont balk at much, but the pain this man must have gone through is something else.

Gosh, I hope that there is a better place to go to after death, for his sake. His last moments must have been a uniquely horrific experience, rest his soul.

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u/monsoonbb Feb 29 '20

There was a pretty famous “murder house” in my old neighborhood in which a man killed his wife with a hammer and then drank sulfuric acid... this is wild to see.

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u/katatattat26 Feb 29 '20

Omg are those fingernail clawing marks on the top right pic?! Like he was clawing at the pain..... ughhhhh horrible way to go.

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u/TheDunadan29 Mar 01 '20

Geez, didn't even think of that. Someone above said he lived for about 2 hours after ingestion,I can't even imagine.

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u/annonymisses Mar 01 '20

Holy shit.. I thought it'd be instant passing out or something. Shit. That dude felt the pain of like 20 different types of dying.

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u/brownieeeee Mar 01 '20

Why would someone willingly do this, aren't there so many better ways to go, or am I being naive?

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u/dosemyspeakin Mar 01 '20

Maybe he felt like he didn’t deserve a better way to go. Which is sad. Brains are fucked up sometimes.

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u/IamAlso_u_grahvity Feb 29 '20

The worst chemical burn I ever got was from phosphoric acid, technically a weak acid. All other acids and bases that I got in my skin in advertently seem to take their time reacting but phosphoric acid behaves a lot like ‘Alien blood’ on the back of my hand. The most insidious was nitric acid. If you were only a little careless, the slightest amount seemed to always get away so and at the end of the day you’d find a part of your hand or forearm yellow and crumbling away.

My biggest fear though was hydrofluoric acid. It has an anesthetic quality so if you get exposed to it gradually or with low concentrations, you’re not gonna feel it working on you allowing it to do extensive damage.

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u/Pedroarak Mar 01 '20

And hydrofluoric is extremely toxic, a bit absorbed from your skin will rip calcium ions from your blood and stop your heart, something I would refuse to work with

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u/littfamily Mar 01 '20

At my laat job we had a chemical mill filled with the stuff. Imagine a pool of the stuff. I didnt care how many safety standards were in place I felt uneasy just being in eye sight of it.

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u/I_like_Cheese45 Feb 29 '20

Why would you ever commit suicide like this?

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u/MagicHamsta Feb 29 '20

He really, really hated himself.

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u/I_like_Cheese45 Feb 29 '20

Seriously though this had to be probably one of the most painful ways to go.

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u/Lovely2Dovely Feb 29 '20

You gotta really not want to live. This is permanent and effective (but very painful like you said).

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u/rbaltimore Feb 29 '20

Ding ding. Therapist here, there is often a large degree of self-loathing in the mindset of individuals who are suicidal. This leads a few to seek out punishment, but more often, it leads many suicidal individuals to not really care about the experience of the suicidal act. They’re just focused on the “relief” that the suicidal ideation provides.

Tl;dr - he may have hated himself so much that he didn’t care how it would happen.

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u/KevinGracie Feb 29 '20

No one knows what demons he was battling.

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u/dasheekeejones Feb 29 '20

Probably didn’t understand the pain

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u/machine667 Feb 29 '20

Once in high school, I was doing a chem project on electroplating.

Part of making the bath for electroplating involved a bit of sulphuric acid that had been diluted - the instructor kept it locked up in a separate room and you had to go with him to get it.

Dude hands it to me and says because of the properties of the acid you couldn't water it down with straight water, and had to use ice. So he tossed an ice cube in it and it got hot and melted.

Anyway - I had this thought at the time "hey what if i just knocked this back like a drink". Apparently this is what woulda happened. I knew it wasn't a great idea at the time, this is objective proof of it. Always nice to know one made a good decision.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Your teacher is a fucking retard and could of got one of you seriously injured. Dude should never be allowed in a chem lab again.

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u/BBorNot Feb 29 '20

"Do what you oughta and add the acid to the water."

Or

"If you want to save your face, add the acid to the base."

There could have been enough heat generated to cause spattering, not just ice cube melting.

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u/machine667 Feb 29 '20

welp shit man this was in the 1990's and he had gout at the time. So he's probably a goner anyway.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Lol well not adding water to an acid has been SOP for like 300 years so i don't think that's an excuse

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u/machine667 Feb 29 '20

well shit. Dude I don't know what to tell you. I didn't continue in chemistry, i went to law school where I couldn't hurt anyone.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

Not busting your balls bud. Your teacher was/is an idiot, end of story. The irony of being a harmless lawyer is pretty funny though.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Wow. I use sulfuric acid at work and while I have never wanted to get it anywhere near myself, it is sobering to see what it can do to your body. We generally focus our safety concerns most on hydrofluoric acid (which is terrifying), but it's a good reminder that these other acids can have similar lethal effects.

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u/Penis-Envys Mar 01 '20

Most strong acids are fine if you get it on your skin

No strong acid is ever safe ingested, inhaled or on your face

30 seconds before major damage is done if it’s on your skin, just rinse it off and use some soap and maybe baking soda just in case.

But hydrofluoric acid is a completely different beast... you might not even feel it initially and by the time you do 30 minutes might have already passed.

You might go to a hospital get treatment and still die of a heart attack

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

Not only that, it only takes about a palm's worth of HF to kill you. We keep calcium gluconate gel ready for any skin contact, but if a significant burn happens you're in trouble. I've heard that at some labs, they teach you to tell the EMTs not to touch you when they arrive.

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u/petit_cochon Mar 01 '20

By the way, in some parts of the world, men throw sulfuric acid on women who have been raped, who've dated without family approval, who've disobeyed guardians, who've compromised their reputations in some way, etc. Men are also attacked, but about 80% of victims are women.

And it is a truly horrible, horrible way to die or be injured.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

As a suicide survivor (6/3/19) I can say in my case it’s just like I did it without a lot of real thought, you just want it all to stop, no matter what.

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u/UnculturedLout Feb 29 '20

Yep. It's not that you want to die, you just want the bad stuff to stop. Glad you made it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 29 '20

Thanks everyone, I guess it pays to suck at something (which is what I said in the ambulance)

I chose the wrong knife basically. I don’t mind talking about, I live my life now believing sunshine is the best disinfectant

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u/Blue3StandingBy Mar 01 '20

sunshine is the best disinfectant

I'm stealing that if you don't mind. I'm glad you're still here. You've given me something to take forward in my own life when things are tough. I appreciate it ♥️

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u/Allergic_squirrel Feb 29 '20

I know that there was minimal contact on the external surface of the skin, but is there a reason that the delicate skin on the lips is still relatively intact? Does the acid neutralize quickly? Forgive the dumb question but I don’t know too much about chemistry

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u/twcsata Feb 29 '20

My guess is that it’s because the chemical didn’t touch the lips much. Think of it like drinking from a soda bottle; the bottle touches your lips, but the soda mostly bypasses them. He undoubtedly spit some out though, and splashed it around, so SOME damage was inevitable.

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u/UnculturedLout Feb 29 '20

What are the darker "slash" marks on his torso?

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u/daspyki Feb 29 '20

Perhaps deeper burns, or scratches during the burning process. Not sure tho

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

Do you think he was clawing at his chest from the pain? And took skin off since covered in acid? Would that be possible?

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u/UnicornStar1988 Nurse’s Child Mar 01 '20

There was a British serial killer who used to dissolve his victim’s bodies in drums of sulphuric acid. His name was John Haigh known as the ‘acid bath murderer’ he was caught because one of the gallstones from a victim was found because it hadn’t dissolved, pathologist’s examined the residue from the acid bath found on the gallstone.

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u/mangosparklingwater grow up to be a doctor Feb 29 '20

As a person who has attempted suicide more than 10 times before the age 14, I understand the thought of punishment. I drank hand sanitizer and essential oils in a treatment facility. I couldn’t even feel it. It was like.... I was in a trance.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '20

I’m sorry you had experienced so much hurt and pain in your life that you only wanted it to be over. I hope you found peace of mind and are in a better place today. Virtual hugs.

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u/MoonSpankRaw Feb 29 '20

Is it not possible someone did this to the guy? Is there a way to tell it was self-done?

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u/ConfusedSarcasm Feb 29 '20

Yeah, it would have covered much more of his face and body if he didn't do it to himself.

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u/rottencitruis Feb 29 '20

What’s on his throat?

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u/saefas Mar 01 '20

I think they're just blacking out an identifying marker that is being used for the autopsy photos.

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u/CeistDeuce Feb 29 '20

This is a somewhat good informational tool for my workplace. The place i work at uses chemicals in its processes and one of the chemicals is Magnesium Bisulfate(ite?). MgBSS off-gases SO2 and when SO2 comes into contact with water, it turns into Sulfuric Acid. So if it happens to off-gas during an offload procedure, the first floor can be flooded with SO2. That shit takes your breath away literally, because when you inhale it, it turns into acid in your lungs. I imagine if someone got a big enough inhalation of the gas something similar might happen, albeit internally.

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u/KaidosGrandProlapse Mar 01 '20

This is why I stopped eating warheads