Asphyxia due to a decrease in oxygen concentration in the inhaled air is not common. Nevertheless, the mass media fairly regularly inform the population about its episodes in wine cellars, silos, and children in closed spaces. Quite a serious problem is exogenous hypoxia in miners as a result of accidents with the release of firedamp, carbon dioxide poisoning of submarine crews in case of failure of ventilation systems. The modern extreme sports enthusiast who are actively engaged in mountain tourism and mountaineering, speleology (including diggers), amateur piloting of sports aircraft and balloons, diving, etc. are subject to such lesions. In the available special literature sources on the topic “Asphyxiation due to a decrease in the concentration of oxygen in the environment”, there are almost no reports related to lifetime pathogenetic characteristics, diagnosis, and the basics of providing medical care to such victims. There are isolated recommendations on the provision of medical care for mountain sickness, while other options for exogenous asphyxia are considered only from the standpoint of forensic medical examination, in most cases — posthumously. Based on isolated domestic and foreign research works, personal theoretical and clinical experience, we have developed an algorithm for diagnosis and medical care at the stages of the route of a victim with exogenous hypoxia.

The current Criminal-Procedural Code of Ukraine in case of forensic-medical examinations of injuries requires to determining of their origin from the action of certain traumatic factors and that belongs to the direct responsibilities of forensic-medical examiner. Determining the circumstances of their formation, does not require any medical knowledge, and therefore does not belong to the competence of the expert. The examiner should not determine and is not obliged to determine the circumstances of injuries in case of falls from one’s own height, because the same injuries (identical morphology and localization) a person can get in different situations. Only the investigator and the court are able gather enough evidences for the conclusions about the circumstances of injuries in case of fall from his own height to the plane surface.