In todays Trinidad Guardian Pathologist: Baby Jadon lasted two hours in heat... Dehydration led to death Baby Jadon Cudjoe survived the sweltering mid-morning heat in the back of a relative’s car for almost two hours on Tuesday before he eventually died. This was the opinion yesterday of Dr Valery Alexandrov, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on the 17-month-old baby at the Forensic Science Centre, St James. According to an official post-mortem prepared by Alexandrov, Cudjoe death was caused by hyperthermia. In a telephone interview, Alexandrov said he had encountered difficulties in confirming the child’s time of death but used his experience to estimate that Cudjoe survived for almost an hour-an-a-half after being locked in his relative’s vehicle at a Petrotrin compound, Penal. “I may have dealt with a dozen or 15 cases of hyperthermia during my career. It does not happen very often,” Alexandrov said. He explained that people who die as a result of the condition suffer a number of symptoms caused by extreme heat conditions, which are a result of the increase in concentration of minerals in the body caused by dehydration. Alexandrov said as the young victim continued to lose water on Tuesday, the compound in the body that regulates breathing would be converted to those that would cause paralysis of the muscles that assist in breathing. He said the victim would have then become drowsy and slowly lost consciousness. “That would explain why the baby could not scream and cry out for help,” Alexandrov said. He also explained that because the baby was trapped in a car, he would have been exposed to temperatures close to 50 degrees. “My point is regardless of the temperature outside the car, inside would be 15 degrees higher,” Alexandrov said. He said infants and the elderly were especially suseptible to extreme temperatures, while noting that most victims of heat waves in temperate countries were the elderly. [Click the link to read this article in full guardian.co.tt/news/2014-05-15/dehydration-led-death]
Posted on: Thu, 15 May 2014 14:40:33 +0000
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