Also...

[danaeris]

Thanks to mactavish for this...

There's nothing suspicious about the death of a man found decapitated by a chainsaw. Nothing at all.

WTF? I mean, are they taking crazy drugs? Is it even possible to accidentally decapitate yourself with a chainsaw?

Comments

[geekosaur]

Pick it up, swing it at your neck. It'll go almost all the way through before friction interferes.

That said, it's damned suspicious.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

you could, uh, be lying on your back, chainsawing at something above you, and, uh, drop it? FIIK.

[andrian6.livejournal.com]

It was a dueling accident. These things happen during chainsaw duels... nothing to see here.

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

UK police are notorious for not supplying all the details of suicide cases (presumably to not give people ideas for what works and what doesn't).

Actually

[admiralthrawn.livejournal.com]

yes, it is possible.

Let's say there was once a sign nailed to a tree. And long ago the sign fell off, and the nail is just sitting there in the middle of the tree, hidden for some reason (a leaf grew over it, or it rusted til it blended with the bark, or you just didn't think to check). You swing a chainsaw at the tree... What happens when you get to the nail? If you're really unlucky, your chainsaw blade which was happily chewing through the wood, comes to a complete stop as it hits the uncuttable, immobile object... But wait, there's an engine causing the cutting edges to be moving at high speeds relative to the rest of the chainsaw... So if that cutting edge is suddenly at rest relative to the nail&tree, the body of the chainsaw must be flying off at high speeds in some direction -- if you're really unlucky that direction is "into your neck".

Newer chainsaws will have a cutoff that detects this and shuts off the engine rapidly enough that you'll get blunt trauma to your neck instead of the spinny blade of doom. Newer chainsaws will also tend to have better guards on them to stop them from hitting your neck on recoil. But older chainsaws did have a reputation for sometimes killing the guy standing next to you or decapitating you from kickback when they hit an uncuttable nail.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Possible, but I'd also hesitate to call it not suspicious.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

apel points out that "suspicious" is a legal term. This isn't suspicious. They know how he died.

[kajmal.livejournal.com]

This link sheds more light:

http://www.topnews.in/people/david-phyall

Apparently he had it on a timer, rested it on his neck, then took a ton of pills.