CSI Medblogs rolls up its sleeves on the Tragic Case of Bosox Fan, Victoria Snelgrove's Death
CodeBlueBlog: "If an exploding pepper ball killed Victoria Snelgrove – and let’s assume for a minute that it did – this represents death by an atrocious concatenation of coincidences, and fearfully bad luck.

Bad luck is the layman's term for the statistics of event occurrence. Statistics is a branch of mathematics that the average person shuns, despite its ultimate importance in understanding why many 'unexplainable' bad and good things happen to bad and good people. Why don't we more frequently adduce statistical rationales to explain the many occurrences it might elucidate? As T.S. Eliot said 'Humankind cannot bear very much reality.'

THE MECHANISM
Let me say first that IF Victoria Snelgrove died as a direct result of a pepper ball striking her in the eye, then the likeliest of the unlikely explanations are:

1. As I have explained before, one proposed mechanism of death can be inferred by assuming the transmission of extraordinary pressure directed posteriorly through the globe, through the posterior orbit, then through the optic canal and superior orbital fissure. The implication is that there will therefore be disruption of cranial nerves and cerebral damage leading to demise.

2. As I also proposed before, the pepper ball could have killed Victoria Snelgrove by internal carotid artery/cavernous sinus injury from atypically propagated vectors of force or direct laceration from a sphenoid fracture.

3. A third mechanism I stated in a previous post was neurogenic shock, induced at the level of the brain stem and cranial nerves. There is a term for this type of extremely rare event: the oculocardiac or trigeminocardiac reflex, which has been reported from stabbings in the eye and is an event which leads to heart dysryhthms and asystole."
- posted by Sophont @ Sunday, March 20, 2005