ECG Of the Month: Suicide

Apparently depression ran in this man's family, and when he took an overdose of his tricyclic antidepressant, he also took the tricyclics of his mother and his sister. Most patients who die of an overdose of a tricyclic antidepressant are pronounced dead without reaching a hospital, and those who die after arriving in the emergency room do so within a few hours.2 Central nervous system toxicity of tricyclic antidepressants may manifest as confusion, agitation, hallucinations, coma, myoclonus, or seizures. Generalized seizures often presage cardiopulmonary arrest,2 and within 20 seconds of the ECG with evidence of generalized seizure activity shown here, the QRS duration increased from 188 ms to 212 ms, and the patient died soon thereafter.