Comparison of pulmonary autopsy findings of the rats drowned at surface and 50 ft depth

Abstract

Introduction: When a body is recovered from the water after a fatal SCUBA diving accident, it is useful to know if the diver was under pressure or not when he/she took his/her last breath, in order to determine the cause and manner of the death. If the victim was under pressure, the air remained in the lungs of the diver will be equal to the environmental pressure. If the body comes to the surface, the air in the lung will expand according to the Boyle's Gas Law and give mechanical damage to the surrounding tissues, due to decreases in environmental pressure. We designed an experimental study to see the difference in pulmonary autopsy findings of the rats that drowned under normobaric and hyperbaric conditions.