[Cause of death in a patient lifting device]

Under the aspect of unusual and primarily obscure finding situations of dead bodies the case of a 81-year-old female occupant of an old people's home is reported. The woman was found dead being suspended by the hook of a patient's lifting machine, which had perforated through the floor of the mouth into the oral cavity. In the course of judicial inquiry first a homicide or a suicide, respectively, were justly considered. The autopsy results and circumstances of the case, however, pointed to a natural death (acute coronary insufficiency) with a preterminal/agonal fall into the hook of the lifting machine. An orthostatic circulatory dysregulation due to the suspension has possibly functioned as an additional mechanism accelerating death.