Watson Murder Case - Discussion

[TropicRat]

18 months ? The baz-tard made out!

I sure hope the prisions there are not country clubs like they are here.

Of course any life insurance will be denied and his ex's family will get him
in civil court. Probably won't do much to give his new spouse any warm &
fuzzies either.

 

[ItsBruce]

...I think a good comparison to Tina's case would be to cases where divers have been trapped, run out of air and found with the reg still in their mouth and those divers who panicked, the reg out of their mouth, indicating they had breathed water directly into their lungs.

That would be very interesting and probably very informative.

 

[Under-Exposed]

I would be curious to know what the dive bible says about those drowning autopsies that find a lot of water in the lungs and what that means as opposed to those where little water is found in the lungs. I think a good comparison to Tina's case would be to cases where divers have been trapped, run out of air and found with the reg still in their mouth and those divers who panicked, the reg out of their mouth, indicating they had breathed water directly into their lungs.

It would be much appreciated if you could directly quote the information you've sited.

I will see if I can pdf it and send it through to you if you want to pm me your email address. From memory, it will depend to some extent on the type of water (freshwater being more readily absorbed than salt water), the length of time they were deceased underwater before being surfaced, whether there were resuscitation attempts (and if so what), then the length of time until autopsy etc. I think the general conclusion, again from memory, was that you couldn't really rely on the presence or absence of water in the lungs to tell you very much.

 

[Under-Exposed]

I should add, or course, it is a book about subaquatic medicine, not a book on forensic medicine, so they are looking at it all from a different perspective.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

That would be interesting reading UE you have my email already. I would suggest that resus attempts may force water into the lungs if the upper airway is not totally clear before resus and it would be virtually impossible to totally clear the airway in most drowning events.

 

[rockjock3]

Sad day. I think he had a part to play, but that is my thought, not my or anybody's knowing he did it.

He only got 11 months not 18.

As far as the plea bargain for manslaughter. The prosecution probably figured getting some time was better than no time. They had NO evidence or witnesses except for circumstantial evidence and opinions. If they knew they had a winnable case for murder they would have never offered/accepted a deal for manslaughter.

 

[K_girl]

I should add, or course, it is a book about subaquatic medicine, not a book on forensic medicine, so they are looking at it all from a different perspective.

I was a little bit stumped by what seemed to be conflicting information about dry drowning between our two sources. The forensic website source I found specifically stated that 10-15% of all drownings are "dry drownings." Your post from this book would lead you to believe that there really is no such thing as a "dry downing." I sent you my e-mail address. Can you tell me when the book was published?

Wikipedia states this about dry drowning:

"..In cases of dry drowning in which the victim was immersed, very little fluid is aspirated into the lungs. The laryngospasm reflex essentially causes asphyxiation and neurogenic pulmonary edema (œdema)..

When water or other foreign bodies are inhaled, laryngospasm occurs and the person's larynx spasms shut. As a result, the vacuum created by the diaphragm cannot be filled by the inrush of air into the lungs, and the vacuum persists. In an attempt to force air in through the spasmed larynx, the person may breathe deeper and with more effort, but this only increases the vacuum's force inside the chest. The obstruction to the inflow of oxygen causes hypoxia, and the obstruction to the outflow of carbon dioxide causes acidosis, both resulting in death.."

Souce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_drowning

What I have been trying to say is, that the fact that Tina still had the regulator in her mouth may have increased the chances of the laryngospasm occurring significantly. It still may have happened if she had panicked and drowned if the regulator had fallen out of her mouth - those chances were 10-15%. What I would like to know is - how many divers who die from panic are found with the regulator still in their mouth? We know that divers who are in a trapped situation are often found with the reg still in their mouths. I was present at a panic drowning and talked to the dive buddy who said he found his buddy clinging to the chain, the reg out of his mouth, turned blue with foam coming out of his mouth.

As Wikipedia states, "very little fluid is 'aspirated' into the lungs." Aspiration is a specific meaning that indicates the presence of foam in the lungs where water entered the lungs while the victim was still breathing. Lack of foam means that the victim stopped breathing before water entered the lungs and any water in the lungs were not "apirated" into the lungs, but rather simply filtered into the lungs after death as Under-Exposed described. You will also see that Wikipedia does a very nice job of describing all the other things that happen to the human body during a "dry drowning," which indicates to me that these things could possibly be found in an autopsy.

This why to me.. the fact that Tina was found with the reg in her mouth has always been significant. I believe she was trying to get air up to the last moments of her life and never gave up trying to breathe.

 

[Under-Exposed]

I was a little bit stumped by what seemed to be conflicting information about dry drowning between our two sources. The forensic website source I found specifically stated that 10-15% of all drownings are "dry drownings." Your post from this book would lead you to believe that there really is no such thing as a "dry downing." I sent you my e-mail address. Can you tell me when the book was published?

Wikipedia states this about dry drowning:

"..In cases of dry drowning in which the victim was immersed, very little fluid is aspirated into the lungs. The laryngospasm reflex essentially causes asphyxiation and neurogenic pulmonary edema (œdema)..

When water or other foreign bodies are inhaled, laryngospasm occurs and the person's larynx spasms shut. As a result, the vacuum created by the diaphragm cannot be filled by the inrush of air into the lungs, and the vacuum persists. In an attempt to force air in through the spasmed larynx, the person may breathe deeper and with more effort, but this only increases the vacuum's force inside the chest. The obstruction to the inflow of oxygen causes hypoxia, and the obstruction to the outflow of carbon dioxide causes acidosis, both resulting in death.."

Souce: Dry drowning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What I have been trying to say is, that the fact that Tina still had the regulator in her mouth may have increased the chances of the laryngospasm occurring significantly. It still may have happened if she had panicked and drowned if the regulator had fallen out of her mouth - those chances were 10-15%. What I would like to know is - how many divers who die from panic are found with the regulator still in their mouth? We know that divers who are in a trapped situation are often found with the reg still in their mouths. I was present at a panic drowning and talked to the dive buddy who said he found his buddy clinging to the chain, the reg out of his mouth, turned blue with foam coming out of his mouth.

As Wikipedia states, "very little fluid is 'aspirated' into the lungs." Aspiration is a specific meaning that indicates the presence of foam in the lungs where water entered the lungs while the victim was still breathing. Lack of foam means that the victim stopped breathing before water entered the lungs and any water in the lungs were not "apirated" into the lungs, but rather simply filtered into the lungs after death as Under-Exposed described. You will also see that Wikipedia does a very nice job of describing all the other things that happen to the human body during a "dry drowning," which indicates to me that these things could possibly be found in an autopsy.

This why to me.. the fact that Tina was found with the reg in her mouth has always been significant. I believe she was trying to get air up to the last moments of her life and never gave up trying to breathe.

Perhaps it is a debate about there being no aspirant and there being a little aspirant. The focus of the article (that I will send you when I am at work next week, if I still have it...its from a recent text) was on the question of whether anything significant could be read into the absence of aspirant, the point being that in a wet droning there were a number of reasons why there may be little or no aspirant in the lungs.

I don't agree that aspiration means the presence of foam, it simply means the inhalation (in the case of drownings) of fluid into the lungs. There are also many reasons why foam might be present that have nothing to do with water (some foreign substances will react with the mucosal lining to create foam).

Also, the wikipedia entry when it talks about the effect of the vacuum may have to be qualified given that we are talking about a person at depth (so an additional atmosphere of pressure for every 10 meters she descended at any time).

I am not meaning to flame when I say this, so please don't take this offensively, but I think that unless and until we actually have the FULL autopsy report it is a little bit of a sterile debate, because we are looking at a select series of factors that may be consistent with various scenarios, but without knowing the other findings that might disqualify them. My experience with autopsy reports in Australia (well, in NSW anyway) is that they are rarely conclusive and are usually couched in very equivocal terms.

 

[Under-Exposed]

I have the June 5th replay on my TIVO, I will take second look and see if they kept that segment. What was in the Coroner's Report however, was that they ruled out unconsciousness as causing the laryngeal spasm. What I did not know at the time of your postings was that laryngeal spasm blocks water from entering the lungs. I errantly discounted what you said because I could not imagine that Tina would have a such a tight grip with her lips on the reg that no water at all would get in. My medical ignorance, so sorry.

However, since "dry drowning" occurs in 10-15% of the time in all drowning cases, they could not conclude that a small amount of water touching the larynx did not cause the laryngeal spasm. We don't know why the coroner concluded that unconsciousness did not cause the spasm. I'm left to guess that it was ruled out because Tina still had the reg in her mouth. If she had gone unconscious first, she probably would have lost the reg and inhaled large amounts of water.

I'm sorry, but what the Coroner said on this issue was that the forensic examination "accepts unconsciousness was possible following a Laryngospasm, but discounted this as the cause of death." The reasons for discounting this are not referred to. It also rules out laryngospasm causing unconsciousness, not the other way around.

Also, at least one of the reports that I have seen suggests that there was in fact water in the lungs.

So again, at this stage at least I think too many unknowns.

 

[livinoz]

Excellent points U-E.


I'd just like to ask where the "statistics" stating 10-15 % of drownings are dry drownings come from? The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) notes on its Web site that a number of media accounts of "dry drowning" incorrectly cite CDC statistics, which the agency doesn't in fact keep.

And as is stated in Cases of Bodies Found in Water, (Lunetta, Philippe M.D.; Penttilüa, Antti Ph.D.; Sajantila, Antti Ph.D. The American journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 2002, vol. 23, no4, pp. 371-376):
 
The diagnosis of drowning relies primarily on critical examination of the subject's individual characteristics, circumstances, and postmortem macropathologic changes. In this retrospective study, based on 1590 consecutive cases of bodies found in water and undergoing autopsy at the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Helsinki, from 1976 to 1998, the frequency of circumstantial data and macropathologic changes crucial for the diagnosis of drowning were determined…External foam, frothy fluid in airways, and overlap of the anterior margins of lungs were found in 275 (17.3%), 739 (46.5%), and 669 (42.1%) of the cases…but no one of these changes, tested against dry-land controls, were specific for drowning.

And also, the term "dry drowning" is no longer condoned by drowning experts. One of those experts, Dr Deborah Mulligan, says the term went out of medical vogue at the 2002 World Congress on Diving. So I'm not sure if it is a term we should be using here. I'm also not sure that Wikipedia is a good reference source, particularly as the article cited only has one reference itself, but that's just my opinion and I am also not trying to "flame" anyone.