Spontaneous combustion killed pensioner, rules coroner

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/spontaneous-combustion-killed-pensioner-rules-coroner-2360082.html

By Matt Blake

Saturday, 24 September 2011

A coroner in Ireland has ruled that a pensioner found dead at home perished as a result of spontaneous human combustion, in what is believed to be the first such case in the country's history.

Michael Faherty's charred remains were discovered in his living room in Ballybane, Galway, three days before Christmas last year.

The 76-year-old was found lying on his back with his head near an open fireplace. But forensic experts concluded that the fire was not the cause of the blaze that killed him. Nor did they find any accelerants at the scene and there was no evidence that anybody had entered or left.

Baffled detectives said the only clues they could find were a scorched ceiling and floor around the badly burnt corpse, while the rest of the house had sustained only smoke damage.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. What about the wicking effect? Clothing in a fold of body fat turns into a candle of sorts when

a spark or cigarette lands on it and burns the person up.

[former9thward]

8. Nobody has been able to duplicate that theory.

[MattBaggins]

13. Not true

[former9thward]

17. It is true.

[Taitertots]

14. Whose body are they going to burn? n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. On CSI, they always use a pig.

[nichomachus]

38. Are you suggesting we use bankers?

[former9thward]

18. People donate their bodies to science all of the time.

My father died last month and that is what he did. There are no conditions on what is done to the body.

[Xithras]

25. It's been proven several times.

There is no longer any real question that human wicking is a real phenomena. It's been duplicated in pigs, and there are quite a few well researched instances of this happening to humans. One of the best documented was an overweight Oregon woman who was murdered and set on fire in the early 90's. As I recall, they later determined that her body had been burning for 13 hours when they found her. The heat slowly liquified her bodyfat, which wicked into her clothing and continued burning like a candle. If the body hadn't been found, it would have continued burning for many more hours.

On edit:
It looks like there's a wiki page dedicated to this effect, and the Oregon murder is listed as one example. The 13 hour burn reduced many of her bones to ash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wick_effect

[former9thward]

36. You own link disproves it.

In none of "experiments" was a cigarette used. All of them used accelerates. Sure, if I dump a bunch of gas over something I can burn it. I will also burn everything else around it. In none of the cases of a human body burning was there serious fire damage besides the body.

[babydollhead]

2. It's one of my favorite ways to go.

My mind was blown by this concept when I was in 7th grade in the 70's.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. lol! I wrote a High School Essay on it..

the looks on my classmates faces were priceless!

[Angry Dragon]

3. witches or Satan would also work

did they investigate those avenues??

[Historic NY]

5. I don't know about that....they always have the same senerio in England...

this isn't the first one involving a fire in a fireplace or stove. They always end up in the same position.......call me a skeptic & I've had some certified training. "De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis." I've seen spontaneous combustion but its always involved a natural setting.

[Kaleko]

6. Phenomena like this make Newtonian materialists' heads explode.

One more reason to seriously study occurrences such as this one with a Zen-like beginner's attitude.

[SidDithers]

27. No, it just makes us laugh harder at those with no real understanding of the world around them...nt

Sid

[Kaleko]

35. My sigline is a nod

to the SidDithers of this world.

:)

[MattBaggins]

7. So we have a coroner who needs to be relieved of their job

[former9thward]

9. Just because you deny science doesn't mean he has to.

[MattBaggins]

10. No way

Just the opposite.

SHC is pure and utter bunk and has nothing to do with science. Nice try but no way am I going to let you try and flip that around.

[former9thward]

21. I am sure you will offer links showing how the guy really died.

[AngkorWot]

11. The coroner is denying science.

I can understand why a guy like a coroner would forget the physics he was supposed to have learned in college, but this is just sloppy work. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

[former9thward]

20. Since you are playing coroner on the internet - what did he die from?

[Selatius]

23. It might be possible the person burned up from falling asleep with a lit cigarette?

People have died that way.

[former9thward]

29. No, their entire body does not turn to ash from a cigarette.

Especially when there is no other fire damage nearby. Does not happen. I'm sure the coroner would have been very happy to blame this on a cigarette if there was any evidence of that.

[AngkorWot]

24. Something that is physically possible in the real world.

He might have even combusted. But it sure wasn't spontaneously.

[SidDithers]

19. +1...

It's "I can't figure it out, so it must be Spontaneous Human Combustion"

Sid

[RagAss]

12. You mean like the Dallas Cowboys did last Sunday?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

16. Was he ever a drummer for Spinal Tap?

[Dr. Strange]

33. Perhaps the coroner should have just left it unsolved.

:D

[SidDithers]

22. I'm sure the open fire in the room had nothing to do with the burning death...nt

Sid

[NeedleCast]

26. So Dude Burns in a Room Which Contains A Lit, Open Fireplace...

but spontaneous combustion is the cause he went with? Christ on a pink pony, someone needs to be fired (pun intended).

From the article:

He said his suspicions were bolstered after stumbling across one textbook by the forensic pathologist Professor Bernard Knight who claimed such cases were almost always found near a fireplace or chimney.

Yes, that happens because the victims generally set themselves on fire while fucking around with a fire in their fireplace.

I want off this rock.

[SidDithers]

28. Joe Nickell's comments...

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/irish_spontaneous_human_combustion_blarney/

I was asked by CBS News' online Health Watch to respond to the case, given my years of investigation of so-called "spontaneous human combustion" (or SHC). (Forensic analyst John F. Fischer and I, having investigated thirty historical cases of the alleged phenomenon, published our explanations in an arson-investigation journal, from which our work was cited in a major forensic textbook, and other sources. I have kept up with developments in the field, investigating and reporting on other cases, and on November 5, 2010, I gave a three-hour presentation on the topic as a special instructor at the New York state Academy of Fire Science.)

As I have explained on many occasions, one cannot say ‘we don't know' the explanation for some occurrence and then conclude we therefore do know. Yet most of the paranormal is promoted in just this way (so that a UFO becomes an alien spacecraft, an unexplained noise in an old house a ghost, and a rare remission of a disease a miracle). Saying that the cause of combustion in the Irish case is unknown and therefore "spontaneous" is to be guilty of the ubiquitous logical fallacy. That is especially true in light of the fact that not one instance of SHC has ever been validated by mainstream science, and in fact there is no credible mechanism by which the body can spontaneously combust. One cannot explain one mystery by invoking another.

Not only is SHC a non-explanation—we might as well attribute the case to a ghost playing with matches, or a fire poltergeist, or Satan—but there is a real-world possibility at hand, as well as corroborative evidence suggesting that that explanation is, in fact, most likely correct.

What really happened? In typical "SHC" cases, the victim is impaired by age, infirmity, or drugs, and thus he or she is more likely both to have an accident and to be unable to respond properly to it. The victim is invariably alone; otherwise the cause would probably be known and the fire extinguished, eliminating the case from the annals of alleged SHC. Although each case must be individually investigated, often victims have been found in proximity to a fireplace where a cinder from a crackling fire could easily have been propelled onto their clothes, smoldered, then burst into flames. Once the person succumbs, his clothing may act like a wick, absorbing melted body fat to fuel more fire to effect still more destruction. In this way the body burns at a relatively low temperature but is largely consumed over time while having little effect on nearby objects. (See my Secrets of the Supernatural, 1988, pp. 149-57, 161-71; Real-Life X-Files, 2001, 28-36, 240-44.)

more at link

Sid

[RT Atlanta]

30. Why am I thinking about Spinal Tap drummers now?

Clips from Spinal Tap discussing their drummers below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZrqC5LL_oo

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

34. I suppose the guy could have choked on someone else's vomit..

[Bloke 32]

31. Don't laugh

An aunt of mine was killed by SHC, and she wasn't anywhere NEAR a fire at the time.

[SidDithers]

37. And my cousin's friend's brother was abducted by aliens...

:eyes:

Sid

[pipi_k]

32. This is exactly why...

I never say, "May lighting strike me if I'm telling a lie".

[w4rma]

39. Sounds like a backdraft was the most likely cause, not spontanious human combustion (lol). (nt)

[jmowreader]

40. David St. Hubbins was right all along, it seems...

"Hundreds of people spontaneously combust every year."

[Lucian]

41. Haha. What a bunch of crap.

[Marnie]

42. The huma body is 90% water.

Water does not spontaneously combust.

H2O does not have a kindling point, it can never catch fire. It can boil, it can become steam, with enough energy it can break apart into its elemental parts, but it cannot burn.

There had to be a source of heat or energy sufficient to cause some material on or near the body to combust and to burn for long enough and hot enough to reach the kindling temperature of flesh.

[hunter]

43. I see it as an inaccurate descriptive name...

... sort of like how a tidal wave or tsunami has nothing to do with the tides or harbors.

Can we come up with a better name than "spontaneous combustion?"