Case report A fatal search for worms—a peculiar electrical accident Roman Bux a, * , Jens Amendt a , Markus A. Rothschild b a Centre of Legal Medicine, J.W. Goethe-University, Kennedyallee 104, 60596 Frankfurt/Main, Germany b Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Cologne, Melatenguertel 60-62, 50823 Cologne, Germany Received 10 December 2002; received in revised form 13 May 2003; accepted 23 May 2003 Abstract A 32-year-old man used a self-made electrical instrument to collect earthworms for fishing. It consisted of a metal stick with a plastic handle. The stick was connected to a 10 m long wire which ended in a single-phase plug. After watering the lawn and connecting the plug to one phase of a socket (AC 220 V), he touched both the handle and the metal stick, presumably while trying to push it deeper into the soil. Through this procedure he closed the electrical circuit from his left hand to his bare feet standing on the wet lawn and was killed instantly. The autopsy revealed burn marks only on the left palm. Petechiae were found in the facial skin and the mucous membranes. The inner organs showed intensive signs of blood congestion. Toxicological analysis of blood, urine, gastric contents, liver and bile was negative. The calculated current of about 111 mA flowing through the body exceeded the range of 80–100 mA generally considered to be lethal. q 2003 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Electricity; Electric marks; Electrocution 1. Introduction Due to precautions taken in the recent decades, casualties from household electric current have become rare events. Most accidents are caused by carelessness. In this respect, we present an extra- ordinary case of a 32-year-old man who died using a self-made electrical device to collect earthworms. The use of electricity in this context is forbidden in Germany and such devices must not be sold. Consequently, only very few of such accidents are known from the last decades. 2. Case report 2.1. Case history An 8-year-old boy reported to his mother that he had seen his father in the garden behind the house working with an electrical instrument. He reported that his father had collapsed and he was lying motionless on the lawn, even though he was splashing him with water for some time. The wife found her unconscious husband on the wet lawn. Beside the left side of the body, a long instrument looking like a foil was lying (Fig. 1). From this instrument, a long insulated electric wire was running to an arbour, where the plug at the end of the wire was laying on the ground about 30 cm away from the electrical outlet in the arbour’s wall. An ambulance was called but Legal Medicine 5 (2003) 242–245 www.elsevier.com/locate/legalmed 1344-6223/$ - see front matter q 2003 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S1344-6223(03)00081-6 * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ49-69-63015277; fax: þ 49-69- 630183461. E-mail address: bux@em.uni-frankfurt.de (R. Bux).