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« THE PRESS BREAKS A JOINT | Main | CSI MEDBLOG: INVESTIGATING THE DEATH OF VICTORIA SNELGROVE--following up how BOSOX fan died... »

CSI MEDBLOGS: HOW DID BOSOX FAN DIE?

The night the Red Sox won the ALCS, 80,000 Bostonian fans swelled the streets around Fenway, and a police officer fired a pepper ball into a part of the crowd. The marble-sized pepper ball -- that travels about 300 feet per second -- is said to have struck a woman in the eye. By the accounts I can find, the woman fell to the ground and was reported to be bleeding from her nose, at least. She died hours later at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

How did she die?

I flipped through the thousand articles Google lists about this event, and there is no clue. No one even really raises the question.

My first observation is that every article on the internet is basically a copy of every other article, with no new information and no intelligent assessment of the incident by someone who might have an independent neuron lurking in his pathologically plagiaristic brain. After reading ten or twelve accounts of the incident I stopped. They were all the same.

Second observation is that the news media are not interested in the truth, or any resemblance thereof. They want to rile up the public against traditional liberal foes such as the police, guns, government, you name it. So the articles all kind of gloss over the actual shooting and jump right to blaming the police, the pepper ball spray company and the mayor. But public drunkenness during the World Series -- that's got to be protected! Isn't that a Constitutional right somewhere?

On to the CSI part:

Here is a paintball and if you want to loook at a pdf the pepper-spray-ball companies use to sell these weapons, go here.

The focus of most of the news articles about this incident is either on police brutality, whether or not Red Sox fans can get publically drunk during the World Series, or on just how unsafe nonlethal weapons are.

Poor and unoriginal reporting aside, how did this girl die?

I’ve seen a lot of projectile-to-eyeball injuries, but I have NEVER seen anyone die from it. In general, this type of injury produces a blow-out fracture of the orbit, but death? That’s a stretch. Obviously, the mechanism can be inferred with transmission of pressure posteriorly through the globe, through the posterior orbit and through the optic canal and superior orbital fissure, and the implication is that there will therefore be disruption of cranial nerves and cerebral damage, but, in one major study of paintball injuries to the eye, by Daniel Listman in the Journal Pediatrics, of 149 paintball injuries reported in children, none had death as an outcome and in their seminal 1985 article Easterbrook and Pashby first reported severe eye injuries related to war games, describing, according to Listman:

26 injuries seen by Canadian ophthalmologists. In 1988, they expanded their cadre of injured patients to 44. These included 17 cases that resulted in blind eyes. The specific injuries included 38 hyphemas, 13 cataracts, 24 retinal injuries, and 2 ruptured globes.

The reason trauma to the globe does not cause death can be derived from standard evolutionary principles. Surely if this mechanism (direct blow to the globe) were fatal, our eyes would have developed behind calcium cages; however, the solution evolution worked out was to create a relatively closed-pressure chamber (the retro orbital space) with thin walls so that any backward-directed force on the globe would “blow out” one of the thin surrounding walls rather than direct the force posteriorly to the central cerebral structures. So by teleological reasoning, the woman shot in the eye with an exploding pepper ball should not have died.

That's the real news story here.

So how did she die?

Was she just catastrophically unlucky (making her survivors perfect clients for John Edwards)?

Was she allergic to capsicum?

Was she taking or using any other medications or substances?

Did she have any preexisting illnesses or conditions?

Why did it take so long for her to die (hours later at Brigham)?

What was the coroner's "cause of death"

Why don't the media really care about the truth and uncovering the truth rather than looking for a quick encapsulated story that sets up the usual suspects and victims like we were all part of some repetitive television soap opera that only happens one way, all the time?

The medblogs are called to action on this.

Posted by Doctor CBB on October 24, 2004 at 12:05 PM | Permalink

Comments

I posted a link to your page on my site as well... Hopefully the relevant parties can be informed of these counter-facts.

Posted by: Will | October 25, 2004 at 04:14 AM

I heard in Sports Radio in Boston the day after the incident, and it was reported that a witness to the incident saw the girl drop after she was shot with the pepper ball, but her injury occurred after hitting her head after the fall.

Posted by: intrigue? | October 25, 2004 at 06:18 PM

Here's some speculation -- first, Pepperball runs at a higher FPS than paintball. They crank them up to 350+. The ammunition is also a thicker plastic shell, over the gelatin shell of traditional paintballs. There is another stickler, thought -- there are different forms of pepperball ammunition. In particular, there is a solid, hard plastic dense ball designed for shattering glass. Given that your average pellet gun doesn't even shatter glass, this particular type of ammo is imparting a lot of force into whatever target it hits.

The Boston PD might have taken responsibility so quickly because they knew that it was because of user error on the part of the police, and they might have known that because the operator loaded the wrong kind of ammunition in the device. Like you said, that is something that should be in the autopsy, since they remnants of the ball should be there. There will be shell fragments if it was a proper one (I've been hit with enought paintballs to know that the shell goes everywhere when one breaks) or there will be a solid ball if it was a glass-breaker.

Posted by: Phelps | October 28, 2004 at 02:16 PM

It's amazing how many people have theories on how this ballstrike might have killed this woman.

I'm telling you that if you stike the orbit with a baseball bat swung by Bobby Bonds you do not kill the person.

The mechanics of the orbit(that I have explained many times -- please read my posts) DOES NOT LEAD TO DEATH BY DIRECT TRAUMA.

Is it possible? Yes.

Is it likely? NO.

So, why hasn't the Boston Police, The press or the Brigham Hospital made clear HOW THIS GIRL DIED?

WHY HAVE THEY NOT?

Because she DID NOT die from a projectile-to-orbit mechanism.

And everyone is afreaid to talk.

peop[le keep asking ME more questions.

ASK THE BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL!!

Posted by: CBB MD | October 29, 2004 at 12:10 AM

the preconcieved story is just easier to believe i guess

Posted by: Will | October 29, 2004 at 09:14 PM

I cared for this woman in the ED at Boston's Brigham and Womens Hospital... The plastic paint/pepperball penetrated her globe, then the orbit and entered her brain. The plastic, bone and pepper detrius was devastating. She never had a chance and we all new her brain damage was catastophic.. long before she went to the ICU. An unlikely injury, maybe, an unlucky one, yes indeed.

Paul

Posted by: Paul Tempe | November 07, 2004 at 06:05 PM

The projectile is more than just a paintball. I guess paintball sounds less lethal.

The following is directly from the FN HERSTAL website,

The FN303 projectile is ''fin-stabilized," Mills said, which gives it more accuracy than a paintball gun.

The primary effect is trauma : the shock (15J/cm³) directly neutralizes the aggressor. Secondary effects will be delivered by a chemical payload chosen according to the mission requirements

All .68" projectiles have a 8.5g weight, a polystyrene body and a granular non-toxic bismuth forward payload

Posted by: b otto | November 13, 2004 at 03:38 PM

I'm no doc, thats for sure. I'm not even sure I understand half the words on this page. What i can answer are these questions...

Was she allergic to capsicum?
Torie had no known allergies.

Was she taking or using any other medications or substances?
No. Although she was of legal age...she had no alcohol or drugs (or medications) in her system. How do I know this you ask? Because I talked to her in the top of the 9th inning.

Did she have any preexisting illnesses or conditions?
No. Torie was a happy, healthy, life-loving 21 year old student.

I miss Torie so much... and it comforts me to know that there are people in the world wondering the same things that I am. I commend you for such a nice piece about such a wonderful and terribly missed friend.

~Shauna~

Posted by: shauna | March 23, 2005 at 09:43 PM

What happened to Victoria Snelgrove is a tragedy. It was reported in the Metro paper on May 3, 2005 that her family may sue the gun manufacturer. I don't think you can give the family enough money for what they have endured. Not that money is the issue as I'm sure they would rather have their daughter over any monetary settlement. What adds to the tragedy is the way they were manipulated when they recieved their settlement of $5.1 Million Dollars from the City Of Boston. If they sue the gun manufacturer and win, as per the settlement, they would have to give up to $2 Million Dollars to the City of Boston. This would be determined by how much they get. Why should the City of Boston get anything? They killed Victoria Snelgrove. Menino is a gem I'll tell you that.

One point of clarification: It isn't a NON-Lethal firearm; it's a LESS-Lethal firearm. The difference being that non-lethal means no death ever caused by the firearm whereas less-lethal means death can occur.

On a personal note......I'm a 41 year old die hard Red Sox fan. It took the Red Sox 86 years to win the World Series since their last win.

It means nothing to me because of this tragedy!!! I would rather "wait till next year" for the rest of my life rather than have what happened happen.

Posted by: Mark | May 04, 2005 at 07:47 AM

The Boston Police were actually NOT using what is known as a Pepper Ball. The projectile that was launched in this case actually was from the FN303 from FN Herstal whose projectiles contain bismuth (type of metal typically used for lethal projectiles) and slight amounts of liquid OC. Not at all like a paint ball. See them here http://www.fnhusa.com/contents/ll_303.htm

This can explain a lot.

Also see: http://www.policeone.com/police-products/less-lethal/projectiles-launchers/press-releases/93336/

And yes, the media definitely has a responsibility to get their facts straight before they release stories that seem to create more of a frenzy than necessary.

The incident, while tragic, was the result of the police using NON or LESS lethal weapons instead of lethal ones. Their use alone shows that the police were intent on protecting, not harming the public. The tragic accident was just that - a tragic accident. Not a malicious act on the part of the Boston Police department in order to cause harm and create frenzy. This is not, however, the way it was portrayed by the media.

Posted by: Sanctuary Safety | August 19, 2005 at 05:08 PM

I know this thread is old, but has anyone considered that she may have been allergic to the chemical? I read several articles that claimed it was "peper spray like" chemical, and not capisin. oh but forget that... As much as everyone wants to debate this and make it a liberal media blaming people or a conservative coverup, the probable truth is much more boring than that: The autopsy was inconclusive. The police and the city know they were responsible for killing her, but it may or may not have been criminal.
Now as we all see form the latest news, they've settled. The end

Posted by: anonymous coward | September 13, 2005 at 04:38 PM

As an 8 year Bail Enforcement Agent, With vast experience in airgun applications, I must say, that deployment of such projectiles should never be commenced against a human target,unless that human target is the sole recipiant of justified force. In laymen's terms, never fire into a crowd unless each crowd member can be demmed a justified target. T.Foley, U.S.B.E.A

Posted by: Thomas Foley | October 01, 2005 at 06:34 AM

Since pepper spray has been chosen the lesser weapon for use of force, are there any studies or know cases where pepper spray has been linked to causing cataracts at a later point after being exposed to the spry numerous times.

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