Spontaneous Human Combustion

[Xherdan]

BBC News - 'First Irish case' of death by spontaneous combustion

 

A man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion, an Irish coroner has ruled.

 

It is believed to be the first case of its kind in Ireland.

 

West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had returned such a verdict.

 

Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home at Clareview Park, Ballybane, Galway on 22 December 2010.

 

An inquest in Galway on Thursday heard how investigators had been baffled as to the cause of death.

 

Forensic experts found a fire in the fireplace of the sitting room where the badly burnt body was found had not been the cause of the blaze that killed Mr Faherty.

 

The court was told that no trace of an accelerant had been found and there had been nothing to suggest foul play.

 

The court heard Mr Faherty had been found lying on his back with his head closest to an open fireplace.

 

The fire had been confined to the sitting room. The only damage was to the body, which was totally burnt, the ceiling above him and the floor underneath him.

 

Dr McLoughlin said he had consulted medical textbooks and carried out other research in an attempt to find an explanation.

 

He said Professor Bernard Knight, in his book on forensic pathology, had written about spontaneous combustion and noted that such reported cases were almost always near an open fireplace or chimney.

 

"This fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation," he said.

 

'Sharp intake of breath'

 

Retired professor of pathology Mike Green said he had examined one suspected case in his career.

 

He said he would not use the term spontaneous combustion, as there had to be some source of ignition, possibly a lit match or cigarette.

 

"There is a source of ignition somewhere, but because the body is so badly destroyed the source can't be found," he said.

 

He said the circumstances in the Galway case were very similar to other possible cases.

 

"This is the picture which is described time and time again," he said.

 

"Even the most experienced rescue worker or forensic scientist takes a sharp intake of breath (when they come across the scene)."

 

Mr Green said he doubted explanations centred on divine intervention.

 

"I think if the heavens were striking in cases of spontaneous combustion then there would be a lot more cases. I go for the practical, the mundane explanation," he said.

 

 

_____________________________________

 

 

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | Does spontaneous human combustion exist?

 

A character in Charles Dickens' Bleak House burns to death without any apparent reason. Human spontaneous combustion is a belief which has been around for centuries but does it really exist?

 

Viewers following Andrew Davies's adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House on BBC One have just seen the dreadful moment when alcoholic Krook - played sinisterly by Johnny Vegas - finds his gin warming his stomach more than usual, and suddenly bursts into flames.

 

As his charred remains are found, Dickens lets the awful scene unfold: "Here is a small burnt patch of flooring; here is the tinder from a little bundle of burnt paper, but not so light as usual, seeming to be steeped in something; and here is - is it the cinder of a small charred and broken log of wood sprinkled with white ashes, or is it coal? Oh, horror, he IS here!"

 

Dickens is unequivocal in ascribing the death to spontaneous human combustion (SHC), the alleged burning of a person's body with no identifiable source of ignition. "It is the same death eternally - inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only - Spontaneous Combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died," he writes.

 

When the story was first published, Dickens was accused of legitimising superstitious nonsense and there was a minor uproar. But the author responded by saying he had researched the subject and knew of about 30 cases. "I have no need to observe that I do not wilfully or negligently mislead my readers and that before I wrote that description I took pains to investigate the subject," he wrote in the preface to the second edition.

 

It is thought part of his source was a collection of cases published in 1763, 90 years before Bleak House, by Frenchman Jonas Dupont.

 

 

SHC TRADEMARKS

 

Body more severely burned than one caught in a fire

Torso is most burned and extremities are least

Fire does not spread away from the body

Soot on ceiling and walls

So is spontaneous human combustion something of fact or fiction?

 

Modern cases have usually come about when police and fire investigators have found burned corpses but no burned furniture. Bafflement at how a body can be reduced almost to ashes, which requires temperatures of about 3,000 degrees, without any of the rest of the room being affected has driven some of the theories.

 

One of the most notable cases was Mary Reeser who was found in her home in 1951, reduced to a pile of ashes save her shrunken skull and her left foot which was entirely intact. Damage to the flat in Florida was small, only soot on the ceiling and walls.

 

The police report claimed the 67-year-old widow's dressing gown had caught fire, perhaps due to a cigarette, although no flame source or accelerant was found.

 

Wick effect

 

In 1982, SHC was offered as a cause of death at the inquest into the death of Jean Saffin, 62. Relatives said they saw her burst into flames in her north London home but coroner Dr John Burton said there was "no such thing" as SHC and recorded an open verdict.

 

 

WHO, WHAT, WHY?

 

A regular feature in the BBC News Magazine - aiming to answer some of the questions behind the headlines

 

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The human body is mostly water and its only properties which burn readily are fat tissue and methane gas, so the possibilities of SHC appear remote. But supporters of the theory have offered alcoholism, divine intervention, obesity and static electricity as explanations.

 

In 1998 the BBC programme QED investigated and used a dead pig to try and present a scientific explanation called the "wick effect".

 

The clothes are the wick and the fat surrounding a person is the fuel source which burns slowly, like a candle, for five to 10 hours.

 

This theory can account for the state of the remains but it does not explain the absence of any initial flame or accelerant, both of which were required for the experiment on the pig. To compound the mystery, many of the victims in the alleged cases did not try and escape and remained seated throughout.

 

But Home Office pathologist Professor Michael Green thought the SHC theory had been debunked.

 

"The way the body burns - the so-called wick effect - seems to me and to my colleagues to be the most scientifically credible hypothesis," he said.

[moof]

I love spontaneous combustion, me.

 

[Cardie]

It's was everyone picking paddy land in that what country do you hate thread what done it.

[The Dude Abides]

It's was everyone picking paddy land in that what country do you hate thread what done it.

 

Try again, and this time in English please.

[Jonny83]

Well he shouldn't have held his farts in then should he.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

Apparently he'd taken the day off work and spent it on the ff reading posts by Abs.

[Xherdan]

Mr Green said he doubted explanations centred on divine intervention.

 

"I think if the heavens were striking in cases of spontaneous combustion then there would be a lot more cases. I go for the practical, the mundane explanation," he said.

 

 

 

The last part could be lifted from a 1970's Irish Detective series. Were not sure how this man died so he must have been struck down by the hand of god for wanking over pictures of his neighbours wife.

[kingkenny78]

I remember doing a study on this at school back in the 80s.

 

We found a case study amongst recorded UK cases of an occurence of this phenomenon in our home town, specifically, and bizarrely, in my mate's street. His family lived in a big Victorian house and we were winding him up that he could be next. We were all interested to know exactly which house it was ( especially my mate ) so we shot off to the library for a look at old newspapers from the time. (late 19th Century)

 

After a bit of searching, we found an old local newspaper report on the incident, which didn't give the house number, but just said ' a house at the head of Booth Place '. His street was a cul-de-sac and his house was at the head of it. There was another house on the opposite side so there was a 50/50 chance that it had happened in his home.

 

There was a right spooky photograph in the news report of the poor fucker who'd combusted. His shoes were on and his trousers were intact from the thigh down, but the torso was a charred mess and, strangely, the head was only slightly barbecued.

 

As you'd imagine, knowing my poor mate was pretty spooked with all this we'd sing songs in his prescence like 'The Heat is On' by Glenn Frey, 'Fire' by Arthur Brown, and my fave adaption of Fat Larry's Band's 'Zoom' : 'Boom, up he went when he walked in the room...'

[dirk grout]

Love the line about most cases happening near fireplaces.

[Xherdan]

I remember doing a study on this at school back in the 80s.

 

We found a case study amongst recorded UK cases of an occurence of this phenomenon in our home town, specifically, and bizarrely, in my mate's street. His family lived in a big Victorian house and we were winding him up that he could be next. We were all interested to know exactly which house it was ( especially my mate ) so we shot off to the library for a look at old newspapers from the time. (late 19th Century)

 

After a bit of searching, we found an old local newspaper report on the incident, which didn't give the house number, but just said ' a house at the head of Booth Place '. His street was a cul-de-sac and his house was at the head of it. There was another house on the opposite side so there was a 50/50 chance that it had happened in his home.

 

There was a right spooky photograph in the news report of the poor fucker who'd combusted. His shoes were on and his trousers were intact from the thigh down, but the torso was a charred mess and, strangely, the head was only slightly barbecued.

 

As you'd imagine, knowing my poor mate was pretty spooked with all this we'd sing songs in his prescence like 'The Heat is On' by Glenn Frey, 'Fire' by Arthur Brown, and my fave adaption of Fat Larry's Band's 'Zoom' : 'Boom, up he went when he walked in the room...'

 

 

 

Its nice when you get to rip the piss out of your mate and call it a 'study'.

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

He tried to light his farts.

 

Case closed.

[brucespanner]

It's clear for everyone, apart form the esteemed Dr mostirishnameever, that what happen is the fella, in a new found passion for fusion food, blow torched himself to death trying to make a crepe with Guinness and potato filling.

 

Explains the burns only to body and the gas would of run out explaining no other part of the house being fire damaged. It also would of destroyed all the paraphernalia of this would be visionary and his cooking exploits.

 

Case closed

[Lurtz]

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Is a coroner really allowed to rule that someone died of a phenomenon that doesn't exist?

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

Is a coroner really allowed to rule that someone died of a phenomenon that doesn't exist?

 

It's Oirland. We've convicted Banshees before.

[dennis tooth]

Probably heard the government rejected the opportunity to fianlly write into law beans on a fry up.

 

Seriously this shit fascinates me. I relate to to the living lightball orbish creatures, forms of light that are alive and in known to surface and can often be mistaken for UFO's.

[Block109'er]

Is a coroner really allowed to rule that someone died of a phenomenon that doesn't exist?

 

Are they fuck!

 

"Yeah and soon after he burst into flames twelve thousand angels flew out of his anal cavity"

 

If I was his boss I would perform an immediate drugs test on the daft twat.