Accidental Choking Deaths with Octopus minor and Octopus ocellatus

Seok Joo Lee; Minsung Choi; Hongil Ha

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2018.42.4.168

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Lee, Choi, and Ha: Accidental Choking Deaths with Octopus minor and Octopus ocellatus

Case Report

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 2018; 42(4): 168-171.

Published online: 30 November 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2018.42.4.168

Accidental Choking Deaths with Octopus minor and Octopus ocellatus

Seok Joo Lee¹

, Minsung Choi²

, Hongil Ha²

¹Department of Pathology, Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

²Division of Forensic Investigation, National Forensic Service Seoul Institute, Seoul, Korea.

Correspondence to Hongil Ha. Division of Forensic Investigation, National Forensic Service Seoul Institute, 139 Jiyang-ro, Yangcheongu, Seoul 08036, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2600-4611, Fax: +82-2-2600-4629, sanchee@korea.kr

Received 13 November 2018 Revised 19 November 2018 Accepted 26 November 2018

The Korean Society for Legal Medicine

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

In Korea, small octopus (Octopus minor) and webfoot octopus (Octopus ocellatus) are food items and fatal laryngeal choking due to ingestion of live octopus is not uncommon. We recently encountered two autopsy cases of accidental choking on small octopus and webfoot octopus. Case 1 involved a 58-year-old fisherman who ingested two live webfoot octopuses in his fishing boat and collapsed. He was immediately taken to the hospital but died. During autopsy, one of the webfoot octopuses was found between his pharynx and esophagus; it was obstructing the epiglottis and upper esophagus. His blood alcohol concentration was 0.140%. Case 2 involved a 55-year-old man who ingested an intact body part of a small octopus and was found dead in his house. He had a history of cerebral infarction and angina pectoris. During autopsy, an intact body part of the small octopus was found to be lodged in the laryngeal inlet.

Keywords: Larynx, Airway obstruction, Accidents, Octopodiformes

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Case 1. (A) An intact webfoot octopus between the pharynx and esophagus obstructing the epiglottis and upper esophagus. (B) Another intact webfoot octopus in the stomach.

Fig. 2

Case 2. (A) An intact body part of a small octopus lodged in the laryngeal inlet. (B) The body part of the small octopus measuring 7×4 cm.

Notes

^{Conflicts of Interest} No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

References

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ORCID iDs

Seok Joo Lee
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9877-712X

Minsung Choi
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7798-9799

Hongil Ha
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2234-5934

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