'Uniwersytet Jagiellonski - Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego'
Abstract
Fatal carbon monoxide poisonings are quite frequent in forensic medicine. Forensic pathologists
usually rule them as accidents but suicides are also common - in Poland just as
much as in other European countries. The most common source of toxic carbon monoxide
is car exhaust or fumes from furnace and gas heating installations in closed spaces. In
this paper the authors present an unusual case of a charcoal grill suicide (first described
in Poland) committed, as a result of physical illness, by a 65-year-old man in his own
house in Kraków. The review of the literature shows that such a method of suicide is very
rare in Europe and North America although grilling is a very popular cooking method
and leisure activity. We observed that the trend of applying this new method in suicides
is a copycat to cases that took place in the countries of Far East at the end of the 20th century.
It became one of the most common method of committing suicide in Japan, Taiwan,
Hong Kong and South Korea. The problem was widely discussed
