Hydrogen Sulfide Suicide Awareness

[46Young]

I don't know if this subject has been discussed before, but we've known about this for over a year now. There has been a trend of people offing themselves in their cars mixing a cocktail that yields hydrogen sulfide.

Be wary when gaining entry into a car for the unconscious. When you stick your head in and take a couple of whiffs, you'll be pushing up daisies the same as the pt. Everyone be safe and maintain situational awareness!

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7290459

[EMT-B 55]

Thanks for posting an informative article

[DwayneEMTP]

Yeah man, that's interesting.

That will (hopefully) be in my head before I open my next suspicious car door, or bathroom door, or...?? Hell.

Dwayne

[Just Plain Ruff]

Yeah man, that's interesting.

That will (hopefully) be in my head before I open my next suspicious car door, or bathroom door, or...?? Hell.

Dwayne

This is a nasty and bad way to off yourself. Sugar Creek Missouri had one just in the past couple of months and 2 or 3 providers were injured. I don't know if there was a note warning the providers or not but if there was bad bad bad form.

Be careful any time you approach a scene where a person in a car is unconscious. The gas is invisible and deadly.

[amraam840]

I remember seeing something on this about a year ago and our Chief of Police just gave us another version in hardcopy of a powerpoint on it. Pretty scary stuff, I mean how often do you get called to an unconcious/unknown and thirty six possibilities and a single dynamic plan of action is screaming through your head? I know, scene safety is paramount but it's not always easiliy recognizable. According to what I've read on it, several successful users have posted warning signs on their vehicle doors but the Sugar Creek incident did not have that. It just takes opening an unlabled car door to take down our first out crew and nobody would know until we didn't answer a 20 minute check. I'll keep my head on a swivel for buckets in cars on Unc/Unk type calls but like Dwayne said, what about in a bathroom? The whole house would be affected. Unless we can all get 4-gas meters on our watchband this'll be a rough time for situational awareness being enough to cover your six.

If anyone has any media on Chemical & Detergent Suicides can you post? I'll do the same.

[Just Plain Ruff]

I remember seeing something on this about a year ago and our Chief of Police just gave us another version in hardcopy of a powerpoint on it. Pretty scary stuff, I mean how often do you get called to an unconcious/unknown and thirty six possibilities and a single dynamic plan of action is screaming through your head? I know, scene safety is paramount but it's not always easiliy recognizable. According to what I've read on it, several successful users have posted warning signs on their vehicle doors but the Sugar Creek incident did not have that. It just takes opening an unlabled car door to take down our first out crew and nobody would know until we didn't answer a 20 minute check. I'll keep my head on a swivel for buckets in cars on Unc/Unk type calls but like Dwayne said, what about in a bathroom? The whole house would be affected. Unless we can all get 4-gas meters on our watchband this'll be a rough time for situational awareness being enough to cover your six.

If anyone has any media on Chemical & Detergent Suicides can you post? I'll do the same.

A google search comes up with quite a few items. Some are from Wikipedia so be careful there.

[amraam840]

A google search comes up with quite a few items. Some are from Wikipedia so be careful there.

Right, I've read 3 pages deep in google searching "Chemical Suicide", "Detergent Suicide", "Hydrogen Sulfide Suicide", "H2S Suicide"... I'm fishing for a powerpoint or .jpg here...

[Mario1105]

i heard it has a rotten egg smell not sure how true that to be seeing i dont know much about it

[amraam840]

i heard it has a rotten egg smell not sure how true that to be seeing i dont know much about it

That's kinda characteristic of most things sulfer. Definately gonna put me on alert.

[CBEMT]

I've seen a few of these covered by various media, and as far as I recall in each case there were signs made by the person committing suicide that there was a hazardous substance in the car. Hopefully we won't see anything like this anymore, but if the trend does in fact continue, I hope the trend of warnings continues as well.