2 TRAFFIC FATALITIES RELATED TO THE USE OF DIFLUOROETHANE

The 18-year-old white male driver and 17-year-old white male passenger of an automobile were killed when their vehicle crossed the median of a 4-lane highway and collided with a minivan. A can of airbrush prope llant was found in the automobile of the deceased. The only drug detec ted during initial toxicological analyses was 130 mg/L ethanol in the blood of the driver. When performing ethanol analysis by headspace gas chromatography, an unidentified peak was observed in the blood of bot h deceased. This peak was identified as difluoroethane (Freon 152), th e propellant in the aerosol can found in the automobile. The concentra tions of difluoroethane in the blood of the driver and passenger were 78 mg/L and 35 mg/L, respectively. Based on a literature search we bel ieve that this is the first report of the quantitation of difluoroetha ne in biological samples.