A rather important factor, however unknown, is what amount of extinguisher powder, and thus what amount of exposure, would cause these life-threatening situations. There’s little to no research on this specific subject. Just as it is unknown what amount of extinguisher powder will kill you, another area that is lacking statistics is the number of people killed from ABC extinguishers. The Journal of Toxicology does track fire extinguisher deaths; however, it reports only a few deaths, but thousands of injuries required hospitalization. Researching this area, physicians and anatomic technicians were consulted. They agreed that if the primary cause of death was known to be a cardiac arrest, most likely an autopsy would not be performed. If one was performed, it would confirm their theory of cardiac arrest as the primary cause of death once they found the lactic acid and heart damage. The dry chemical powder from the extinguisher would probably never be found or linked to the cause of death. This shows that the accurate number of deaths directly caused by extinguisher inhalation is still impossible to know.