ORIGINAL ARTICLE

individuals who try to help the victims or those who are present at the scene may be exposed to the gas and suffer from secondary poisoning. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiologic profile of an outbreak of H2S suicides in Japan. In September 2008, questionnaires about patients involved with H2S poisoning were sent to 250 hospitals, including emergency medical centers and university hospitals, in Japan. Data collected from each patient included gender, age, clinical manifestations, date of event, location of suicide, source of H2S, treatments and neurological outcome. The Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) was used to assess neurological outcome at hospital discharge (10): CPC1. Conscious, alert, possible mild neurological o