Chem Lab: Medical Assistant Drops Dead While Huffing Ether in Hospital Break Room

When the colleagues of an anesthetist found him lying dead on a bed in their break room with an

empty bottle of inhalable anesthetic in his hand, they had a lot of a lot of questions to answer. Uttam

Garg and Cecilia Rosales, pathologists at the University of Missouri Kansas City School of

Medicine, began a thorough investigation.

Since sevoflurane, the drug that the dead medical assistant was clutching, is highly volatile, the

doctors packed blood and tissue samples in airtight vials before shipping them to a forensic lab for

drug tests. Without special packaging, the deadly ether would have evaporated in transit.

At the University of California San Francisco, toxicologists checked for more than three hundred

different drugs. With the exception of modest amounts of the anesthetic, the guy was completely

clean.

An autopsy showed that the young man had a partially blocked coronary artery, but it was not severe enough to kill him. An close look at his lungs told a different story. There were signs of frothing and a buildup of fluid. He had probably asphyxiated.

Garg and Rosales explained their findings in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. The report is already available online and will appear in an upcoming issue.

In conclusion, we report a case of self-inflicted death from sevoflurane inhalation. The autopsy findings revealed pulmonary edema and frothing, in an otherwise normal individual probably due to respiratory obstruction and depression with consequent hypoxia.
The novel findings in the present report include sevoflurane as the sole cause of death and a description of the resulting sevoflurane concentrations in brain and lung tissues. The case also suggests the danger of sevoflurane abuse.

Vapors from the potent ether can knock people out faster than a ninja. Once unconscious, anyone that is under the influence of the drug is helpless if their airway becomes obstructed. The medical assistant should have known that. At least he did not feel his last moments.