by REERA YOO
On Nov. 3, South Korean forensic officers announced the results of their first autopsy on Shin Hae-chul and revealed that they found a 0.3 cm hole in the singer’s pericardium.
Shin Hae-chul, a veteran singer and rock icon in the South Korean music industry, died on Oct. 27 after suffering from a cardiac arrest. Ten days prior to his death, Shin underwent an intestinal surgery at Seoul Ansan Hospital, which raised suspicions that his death was caused by the professional negligence of the doctors who operated on him.
On the day of his funeral, Shin’s family members announced that they will be pursuing a lawsuit against Asan Hospital for alleged medical malpractice.
The National Forensic Service (NFS) said at an official briefing that the cause of death appears to be blood poisoning caused by a combination of peritonitis, an inflammation of the abdomen’s inner wall, and pericarditis, an inflammation of sac-line membrane enclosing the heart.
According to the Joongang Ilbo, the medical records provided by Asan Hospital stated that doctors found a hole in Shin’s small intestine, which caused small amounts of food to leak through the hole and infect the abdomen. However, the NFS said it was unable to find the alleged centimeter-long perforation since the doctors at Ansan Hospital had removed it during surgery.
“Since the procedure took place in Ansan Hospital, we have to wait for cell slides and small intestine extracts in order to look into this matter further,” said Choi Young-shik, the head of the NFS’s Seoul office.
Choi also added that he could not confirm whether or not the hole in Shin’s pericardium was a direct result of the intestinal surgery, but said there was a “correlation” between them.
The NFS will continue to investigate in order to determine the precise cause of death, using more detailed pathological examinations and an X-ray CT scan on the body.
Featured photo courtesy of Koreaboo
