[Fatal explosion injuries from blasting a cigarette machine].

Abstract

In the last few years, a growing number of cases have been reported in Germany in which vending machines have been blasted by criminals to get at the money. Thus, it was only a question of time for the first fatalities to occur as a consequence of such careless explosions. We report on the death of a 16-year-old boy who died after triggering an explosion by spraying a deodorant into the coin slot of a cigarette machine. Death was caused by severe craniocerebral trauma due to tertiary blast-related injuries when the front plate of the machine hit the victim's cerebral and facial skull.