[A case of survived compression of the thorax by kneeling on it--"burking"?].

The authors describe the case of a 27-year-old Vietnamese shoplifter who was caught by two shop detectives and suffered traumatic and mechanical asphyxia due to obstruction of the respiratory excursion and pressure against the neck. The man surprisingly survived the incident without any neurological damage, although the emergency doctor called to the scene diagnosed a score of 4 on the Glasgow Coma Scale. Whether the term "burking" applies to the described case depends on which of the various definitions in the literature is used.