A Case of Fatal Asphyxia by a Barbell during a Bench Press

The bench press is a widespread form of weight training with few scientific reports on its associated fatalities. We herein report a case of an individual performing bench press training who was found deceased in a supine position on the bench with the shaft of the barbell resting on his neck. The bench press safety bars were set at bench height. On the basis of the postmortem computed tomography imaging and the autopsy, the cause of death was determined to be fatal traumatic asphyxia caused by a cervical compression. We wish to highlight the importance of correctly using safety devices during weight training as well as the need for developing and disseminating safe equipment that is not dependent on the manner of use. We also wish to highlight the need for a form of legal regulation on the design of devices.

A Retrospective Study of 51 Pediatric Cases of Traumatic Asphyxia

Backgroundtraumatic asphyxia (TA) is a rarely reported disease characterized as thoraco-cervico-facial petechiae, facial edema and cyanosis, subconjunctival hemorrhage and neurological symptoms. This study aimed to report 51 children of TA at the pediatric medical center of west China.Methodsscanned medical reports were reviewed and specific variables as age, sex, cause of injury, clinical manifestations and associated injuries were analyzed using SPSS 25.0.Resultsaged as 5.3±2.9 (1.3-13.2), 30 (58.8%) were boys and 21 (41.2%) were girls. Most TAs occurred during vehicle accident, object compression and stampede. All patients showed facial petechiae (100.0%, CI 93.0%-100.0%), 25 (49.0%, CI 34.8%-63.2%) out of 51 presented with facial edema, 29 (56.9%, CI 42.8%-70.9%) presented with subconjunctival hemorrhage, including bilateral 27 and unilateral 2. 6 patients had facial cyanosis (11.8%, CI 2.6%-20.9%). Other symptoms were also presented as epileptic seizure, vomiting, incontinence, paraplegia, etc. The most frequent companion injury was pulmonary contusion (76.5%, CI 64.4%-88.5%). Other companion injuries included mediastinal emphysema, fracture, cerebral contusion and hemorrhage, hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, abdominal organ contusion, mastoid hemorrhage, hematocele of paranasal sinuses, spinal injury, hepatic insufficiency, myocardial injury and retinal hemorrhage and edema. Treatment was mainly supportive. No death occurred in our study. The prognosis is rather good if without damage of central nervous system.ConclusionTA could bring out multiple symptoms, among which retinal hemorrhage and edema, spinal injury and viscera impairment have been less observed. Comprehensive physical and auxiliary examination should be performed considering TA. Its prognosis is rather good with focus on life-threatening complications.