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Irish Man's Death Ruled Spontaneous Combustion
chrb writes "BBC News is reporting that an Irish coroner has ruled that a dead man was killed by spontaneous human combustion. The controversial finding is a first in Irish history. From the article: 'West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had recorded such a verdict. Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home in Galway on 22 December 2010. Deaths attributed by some to "spontaneous combustion" occur when a living human body is burned without an apparent external source of ignition.'"
If the reason isn't found, either the investigators are not good enough, or the science isn't. Otherwise such an "explanation" falls in the realm of witchcraft.
Fermi claims another life and they pay off the coroner!
I looked into this when I first read about it. Apparently a disproportionate amount of "spontaneous combustion" cases are older people found next to fire places, this man included. I was not able to find details that would rule out an existing fire in the fireplace contributing to the cause, like an absence of ashes. It's speculated that these cases are people who had a stroke or heart attack while warming themselves by the fire, after which a small spark flies out and eventually smolders the entire body.
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It happens sometimes. People just explode.
link.
See that "Preview" button?
"The court heard Mr Faherty had been found lying on his back with his head closest to an open fireplace." ...
"He said Professor Bernard Knight, in his book on forensic pathology, had written about spontaneous combustion and noted that such reported cases were almost always near an open fireplace or chimney." ...
""There is a source of ignition somewhere, but because the body is so badly destroyed the source can't be found," he said."
The obvious solution is that his hair caught on fire; perhaps with some sort of flammable substance in his hair like an aerosol or hair gel and the damage was too great for forensics to pick it up.
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Except that humans are not particularly inflammable. Sure, the hair burns, and maybe a bit of the skin or clothing, but the huge quantities of water in the body make for a reasonable extinguisher. Perhaps, though, if you're loaded up with lethal levels of alcohol...
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
If your job is to figure out what caused something to happen, "I can't figure it out" is not success, but is at least a rational response. "It had no cause" is nonsense.
As mentioned above, it's often old people lying close to a fireplace.
the second half is drunk fat people, who don't wake up when their clothes are burning. Their fat melts, and the rest of the clothes functions as a wick, replenishing the fire with more melting fat. Why they don't wake up, maybe they're already dead, but that's pretty hard to establish when there's almost no body.
He's Irish, therefore, he must have been drinking, and he's 76, so was probably taking nitro glycerine for his heart. Mystery solved.
Now, does that make me a forensic investigator?
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Lemmings explode after shaking their bodies.
The best explanation I've heard is the wick effect.
The presumption is that the person dies of other causes, and then a lit cigarette or some other ignition source starts the process. And you're right, from what I've heard, a high percentage of SHC victims were known to be heavy drinkers, which would only add more fuel to the fire.
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It'd take an awful lot of energy for a human body to get up to ignition temperatures on its own. Most of the cases in our more superstitious days turned out to have cigarettes as an ignition source. I wouldn't rule out a defective electric blanket. Or pretty much anything that can make a spark around, say a wool blanket. I'm sure there are a lot of avenues of investigation we could follow before we go STAMPEEDING for "Spontaneous Human Combustion", Mr McLoughlin!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Spontaneous refers to the lack of any obvious ignition source (except the cigarettes they smoked, or the fire they 'fell asleep' next to - but I digress). If an empty desk in my office were to start smoldering and eventually flames appeared that would be spontaneous combustion as much as if the whole thing suddenly burst into flame.
1kg of lard contains 37700kJ and can therefore vaporize almost 16,9kg of water. 5kg of lard can vaporize 84kg of water.
Those 5kg just about cover the essential body fat, i.e the fat we need in/around our brain, skin, joints, etc.
Spontaneous does not mean instantly or quickly, it means something happening with no apparent cause or external cause, or someone doing something involuntarily. The action doesn't have to be over quickly.
if you're loaded up with lethal levels of alcohol...
That would never happen in Ireland.
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Apparently another common factor in SHC deaths is that the victims tend to live alone. However, there is one freaky story in the Wikipedia article linked above.
Obviously that would have nothing to do the the wick effect, and there doesn't seem to be any corroboration of the event. Still... makes you wonder.
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to me "spontaneous" means
People who can't use dictionaries should DIAF.
You can't take the sky from me...
I remember some guys playing with a magnetron out of a microwave oven a couple of years ago managed to set some plywood on fire at a moderate distance (reports of almost 100 feet/30 meters). If it was true or not, I don't know, but it would explain a lack of any chemical residue or accelerants. It would be a perfect arsonist's tool, and would make forensic analysis a bitch. Directed energy really wouldn't leave a lot of trace behind, would it?
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This reminds of that time I didn't make a Family Guy reference and people unconsciously thanked me.
+0 Meh
In most of the "spontaneous combustion" cases in the past, the victims have shared two important characteristics:
1) They were smokers
2) They were alcoholics
Combining a flammable liquid, lit cigarette, and someone prone to passing out--well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out the likely scenario in most of these cases.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
More fuel? How much alcohol, realistically, can you have in your body? I doubt you can really store even a liter of ethanol. That'd be two liters of vodka. And apart from what's buried deep in your GI tract, the rest of it is too diluted to be much of a concern.
Drinking simply makes you unaware of being on fire for long enough for the wick effect to get things going. I'm sure many elderly people have problems with peripheral sensing of pain, especially if they have circulation problems. They may well be not drunk and still on fire without knowing. My 30 y.o. friend had a (recently fixed) Chiari malformation, causing her to lose all peripheral sense of touch and pain, even deep pain. She looked like her hubby was beating and scalding her, even though it was of her own doing (no effing pun intended, please).
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Why do they always measure volts but not amps? A police taser can be as much as 100KV. An average person in a dry climate could build up 40KV without trying too hard. 40kv at low enough amperages can be 100% safe for human contact.
40KV doesn't tell me shit other than that his sparks were jumping close to half an inch.
Now it's obvious that the amperages involved here were pretty high since he was burning and melting things. How safe is this situation for the human body?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Because static electricity doesn't have current to measure, so it it would be hard to quantify in amps, a unit of current? Once there is current, it is no longer static.
Exactly - it's not even close.
A blood alcohol level of just 0.4% is lethal. But for a water-alcohol mixture to burn at room temperature, you need something like 70-80% alcohol.
This doesn't account for the accounts made by actual survivors of this phenomenon. There have been people who have survived the experience and could offer no explanation at all.
More people have reported being obducted by aliens. And about an equal number have had a jolly tea party with Mr. and Miss. Bigfoot.
Sometimes to understand something, you have to forget what you think you know.
Yes, giving yourself brain-damage is probably the best way to understand things. Screw those scienticians with their "Lurnings" and "Edumacation". All we need is ignorance.