Updated 6:45 PM
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 at 11:27 a.m.
Read more: Local, State
EAST BLOOMFIELD, NY (AP) -- Two men in upstate New York have died less than a week apart by asphyxiation from intentionally inhaling toxic mixes of household chemicals while seated in their cars, authorities say.
The names of the 21-year-old victim from near East Bloomfield and the 22-year-old victim from Berkeley, Calif., were not released and authorities did not know if the two suicides were somehow related, Ontario County Sheriff Phil Povero said Tuesday.
Each man left a sign on his car window warning emergency crews not to open the doors because of toxic fumes.
The New York man was found dead Monday at a park in East Bloomfield in Ontario County. Povero said an autopsy determined he intentionally mixed chemicals to create lethal hydrogen sulfide gas.
The California man was found dead last week some 50 miles away in Cayuga County. He also died by mixing similar chemicals after parking along a highway, authorities say.
The sheriff said he has never handled a suicide by hydrogen sulfide. The New York Health Department could not immediately provide a number on hydrogen sulfide suicides.
In Japan, more than 870 people killed themselves last year by inhaling toxic fumes from household chemicals, 30 times more than the 2007 total, the government said. Japan has long battled a high suicide rate, and is now seeing a wave of deaths from mixing common household products to form poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas.
(Copyright ©2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
