ETHANOL LEVEL DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN POSTMORTEM BLOOD AND SUBDURAL-HEMATOMA

Alcohol use is a major risk factor for accidental injury and death. Ho wever, when death occurs several hours after injury, ethanol in the bl ood may be absent or low. Ethanol in sequestered hematomas has been us ed to retrospectively implicate alcohol as a contributing factor at th e time of injury, A 69-year-old man died from a large acute subdural h ematoma. He had been seen in a hospital emergency department 8 to 12 h ours before his death for treatment of two lacerations (one on the hea d) that occurred during a fall. Postmortem blood ethanol was 0.07%, an d subdural hematoma ethanol was 0.04%. This ethanol level differential between the postmortem blood and the subdural hematoma indicates that this man had consumed alcohol after being released from the hospital.