Abnormally high alcohol concentration in the heart blood

A 46-year-old male alcoholic whose whereabouts had been unknown for about a month was found dead at the foot of a cliff 31 m deep. Fractures of the mandible, thorax and left patella were found at autopsy, but fatal injury to the brain or other organs was not observed. The alcohol distribution was 7.44 mg/g in the heart blood, 13.91 mg/g in the left thoracic cavity fluid and 1.88 mg/g in the urine. The high ethanol concentration in the heart blood was assumed to be mainly due to the diffusion of ethanol from the contents of the stomach and postmortem production of ethanol. It was decided that the cause of death was not acute alcohol intoxication but respiratory failure caused by fractures of the thorax.