GP- According to a new report, the Texas GOP congressional staffer who died earlier this month after she caught on fire in her home doused herself in gasoline and set her body on fire.
After reviewing surveillance video, authorities determined Regina Santos-Aviles was in her backyard alone when she caught fire on September 13.
Santos-Aviles was alive when first responders arrived at her home late in the evening on September 13; however, she passed away the next morning.
Firefighters also had to put out burning gas cans, according to the report obtained by Uvalde Leader-News. more
Who does she think she is (now that she’s a crispy critter), a Buddhist Vietnamese setting herself on fire protesting the Vietnam War in the early 60’s. At least they won’t have to cremate her remains.
Soon after “how horrifying” came the thought “psych meds”.
Just for Eva…
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqGLpxe-BrDc6_71Orr3giN_gTaPiIMci0osq3SlMOErAR1G1_1I0qUL0YgrE3iZ3VqCbh860-qHJFw-YFq6AnSnKkQ52jKUAWpqH-Fw1rltjlIEUzY75NtmhSG_2nHVd7nVw7KoW7fT0SXg3mkUqWTG7Lw8LxiggAl5FmTltkN5ef-qfnmhUKQ8VPa-_J/s736/1000124720.jpg
Glad she didn’t write “Make America Great Again” on the red gas cans. 🤔
1. Thank you Harry – most apt
2. in the Second Ring of the Seventh Circle Dante describes (in detail) the punishment for violence against oneself. If you don’t want to read Dante, Jerry Pournelle provides an modern-day version in his book “Inferno”.
Tragedy, I feel for her family.
…there’s a few different things here. First, what an incredible tragedy for her and everyone who loves her. Even if it were a suicide her stated last words suggest suicide regret, which is a horrible thing you sometimes see after a suicide “gesture” is a bit more successful than the gesturer hoped; but I do hope for her sake that her TRUE last words were in a prayer to the Lord for His mercy and His salvation. Even then it was not too late.
We should keep her loved ones in prayer, as well as those who fought to save her life. This would be memorable for all, and not in a good way. May the Lord bless and strengthen her family to the tasks at hand, comfort them in their greif, assuage their feelings of suicide guilt, and let the horror fade and the memories of happier times remain. And may He bless those who responded with forgetting, sometimes that’s the most necessary blessing of all.
But again, this highlights the fallacy of trying to match the response to the dispatch. It was evidently dispatched as a “disturbance call”, which maybe brings a lone LEO and possibly not in a hurry either, depending on how it was worded and if there were updates en route.
Wont HE be surprised.
…so he gets there, he looks around a bit, sees a fire, maybe goes back to the car for an extinguisher. Goes to the fire after requesting FD, then sees whats REALLY burning.
From there, its a classic “Oh, SHIT!” run. He says “Oh, SHIT!, and tells Fire to step it up then tries to put her out; Fire gets there, goes “Oh, SHIT!”, begins treatment, and probably calls for a Medevac flight while telling the squad to step it up; the squad, flight crew, hospital all go “Oh, SHIT!”, but do what they can to get it done.
Unfortunately, sometimes God says no.
…I still remember my first fatal fire. I was still a Green Stripe so they rightly didnt trust me with much, more of an appropriately dressed Looky Lou than anything else, but steeped in the lore and adventure. We had the whole damn house party there, a couple pumpers, a Quint, 2 ambulances, a rescue truck, a hospital medic unit, officer cars, police cars, even an Air Care with a flight surgeon.
They got the guy out, worked him a bit, then the Flight Doc prononced him then and there.
You could have knocked me over with a feather.
HOW?? We had all that crap, a couple dozen guys, the latest in lifesaving tech, and BIG medical experience. The house wasnt even all that bad, and visually neither was the guy.
So to newbie me, it was UNFATHOMABLE that someone would be ABLE to die with ALL those guys and ALL that stuff and MILLENIA of accumulated medical knowledge behind us. HOW???
…sometimes, God says no.
…Ive put some years behind me since then and seen some things, and became an inveterate autopsy reader when the outcome didnt make sense to me, so I know a bit more than I once did. I dont know this lady’s complete situation, whether it involved drugs or alcohol (which they often do) or a nefarious actor that they dont want to admit to (A Republican in Uvalde of school shooter and subsequent cover up fame, ya gotta wonder), but purely from a “burn” standpoint theres a couple of ways it kills.
Most directly, smoke and even fire inhalation. Smoke can be quite toxic and hot close to the source and cause asphyxiation and throat edema; fire can also make the throat swell and lower airways as well. Given that she had “last words” with family, this would probably be at the hospital and sugggests this was not the case, as they would have tubed her or trached her if it was a problem which does not lend itself to speech.
Longer term, infection kills most severe burn victims. Your skin keeps a lot of nasty out; break it and stuff gets it, break a LOT of it and its open season on your body for bacteria. Even with a very clean environment, the prognosis is often not great if the burn area is large.
In between is various kinds of shock. The worst is probably, and to some surprisingly, hypovolemic shock even with little bleeding. This is because your fluids go to swelling and leak plasma into bandages, and over a large area it can compromise your blood pressure much like if you bled out. This can kill by itelf but can also bring out other issues like if you already had a cardiovascular issue or the smoke and other toxins made your heart irritable, not to mention you are in a TON of pain and your heart isnt going to be happy about THAT, either.
Then the pain management usually involves morpheme or other respiratory depressants. Given that she apparently wasnt tubed, wouldnt be hard to kill her that way if you werent monitoring her closely.
So still a lot of questions and few answers.
Coroners are political animals too. Not sure we will ever have any.
That we can believe, at any rate.
Pray for her family.
Pray for her responders.
And pray for this nation.
Only He can make this make sense.
Too much internet time will do it.
There is a right way to do the immolation protest. Allow Chef from South Park to demonstrate:
https://youtu.be/fCe8Px_-wTw?si=jR-FV_ENuQ54PlaN
SNS: I saw a program about the Golden Gate Bridge that said that just about everyone who survived a suicide attempt by jumping off felt instant regret as soon as they went over. it is probably safe to assume that the people who did not survive probably also felt it but, of course, there is no way of knowing.
Smart money will wait for the completed investigation results.
And then there’s FDR in Hell.
Leave me out of this, tootsie.
On Fire – Van Halen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S_I_QryQjg
Check her finances & relationship status.
That usually gets the investigators 90% of the story.
She flamed out early in life.
Left behind a young son, I believe.
I’m told her last comment was “I feel so cold”.
This young woman was probably desperately mentally ill or under some threat or circumstances where she felt there was no way out, other than suicide. Her family understandably is in denial. This could still be a homicide. Nothing really clear-too many maybies. Whatever the cause, it’s a horrific ending to a someone’s life.