In March 2013, a clinical case published in Case Reports in Emergency Medicine described the suicide of a 61-year-old woman through ingestion of concentrated hydrochloric acid. Despite intensive medical efforts, the patient died within hours due to septic shock and devastating gastrointestinal damage: the acid had corroded the esophagus, stomach, and part of the duodenum, causing multiple perforations, widespread necrosis, and an irreversible collapse of internal balance.
This case illustrates the mechanical brutality of hydrochloric acid, which kills by directly dissolving tissue, leading to death through internal bleeding, massive infections, and systemic collapse.
But if HCl kills like a blade tearing from within, hydrofluoric acid (HF) acts like an invisible poison, silently penetrating deep into the body, binding to calcium and magnesium, and causing arrhythmias, cardiac collapse, and sudden death even in small amounts.
The lethality of hydrofluoric acid is even higher: while HCl has an estimated mortality rate between 70% and 85% in voluntary ingestion cases, HF reaches 90–99%, even in doses under 50 ml, and can kill within minutes if calcium gluconate is not administered immediately.
Moreover, while hydrochloric acid primarily destroys the upper gastrointestinal tract, hydrofluoric acid spreads at the cellular level, paralyzing the biochemical mechanisms essential to life.
In summary, both are among the most devastating and painful methods of chemical suicide. HCl kills by massive corrosion and sepsis; HF by systemic electrolyte imbalance and cardiac arrest.
One burns, the other disintegrates; both leave behind the mark of a will that chose fire as its final word.
Suicidal ingestion of undiluted hydrochloric acid is a rare but live-threatening event. We report on the dramatic and fulminant course of a 61-year-old woman who drank 200 ml of 30–33% hydrochloric acid. On admission to our intensive care unit she ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Angela Scoular, a British actress known for her role as a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), met a cruel end: she ingested a powerful cleaning agent containing 91% sulfuric acid. This tragic event occurred in April 2011, in London. The highly corrosive liquid caused irreversible burns to 40% of her body, digestive tract, and throat. According to coroner Dr. Fiona Wilcox, death occurred within two hours, due to the devastating internal injuries and the external damage caused by the acid, which she also poured on herself.
The 65-year-old actress had long struggled with alcoholism, depression, and bipolar disorder. She had previously undergone treatment for bowel cancer, considered resolved in 2008, but in the months prior to her death, she had begun to fear its return. Her mental state was further deteriorated by severe alcohol addiction, with a reported intake of 150 to 210 units of alcohol per week.
Just days before her death, she had been arrested for drink-driving. She was also on medication at the time. The coroner ruled her death a suicide, carried out while "the balance of her mind was disturbed."
Angela Scoular had previously attempted suicide in 1992 and was saved then by her husband, actor Leslie Phillips. Despite their challenges, Phillips recalled their union fondly, calling it a happy marriage—except for her battle with addiction.
Scoular's death remains one of the most widely known cases of suicide involving sulfuric acid. This substance is among the most corrosive known to science, capable of causing fatal injuries within minutes. Her story illustrates the silent suffering that can dwell behind a public figure and the extreme violence some inflict upon themselves when mental anguish becomes unbearable.
Source: BBC – Actress Angela Scoular died after drinking acid cleaner
Nell'articolo pubblicato da ETV Bharat si racconta il caso di Tabassum, una donna di Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh, India), che si è tolta la vita bevendo dell'acido dopo essere stata derisa per il colore della pelle. Anche se il tipo esatto di sostanza non viene specificato, considerando l'ambiente domestico è plausibile ipotizzare che si trattasse di acido solforico, comunemente usato nei detergenti per scarichi o nelle batterie, oppure acido cloridrico, presente nei prodotti per la pulizia dei bagni, o ancora acido fenico, impiegato in alcuni disinfettanti rurali. Sebbene il suicidio per ingestione acida sia considerato raro a livello globale, in certi contesti sociali, segnati da disagio, isolamento e violenza familiare, non è così infrequente. Si tratta comunque di un metodo estremamente doloroso, fisicamente devastante e, nella grande maggioranza dei casi, fatale. La scelta di una sostanza tanto distruttiva lascia intravedere non solo la volontà di porre fine alla vita, ma anche la profondità del tormento interiore e del senso di annientamento che spesso accompagnano queste tragedie.
https://www.etvbharat.com/english/s...id-in-muzaffarnagar/na20221011212420690690713
In September 2015, in Chennai, Jegaveerapandian, a 45-year-old man from Kuil Thoppu, died after consuming acid near the petrol station where he worked, located on Santhome High Road. According to the police, it was a suicide motivated by personal reasons, although the man's family claimed he had been defrauded by an employee and staged a public protest demanding compensation, which blocked traffic for over half an hour. The man, who worked as a manager and reportedly struggled with alcohol addiction, allegedly mixed the acid with alcohol before consuming it. He was rushed to Government Royapettah Hospital but did not respond to treatment. This case, once again, demonstrates how acid—though rarely used as a means of suicide—is sometimes chosen in moments of profound despair and psychological vulnerability, leading to invariably lethal and agonizing consequences for the human body.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/man-consumes-acid-dies/article7631043.ece
Suicide by drinking acid is rare in the Western world but much more common in some parts of the world, such as India, where people also use pesticides, herbicides, or any toxic substance they can get hold of, and these are all extremely painful deaths that show how, in certain contexts, people rely on whatever is within reach just to put an end to their suffering.
