delivered the opinion of the Court.
This сase involves an appeal from the “Serbonian Bog,” that morass of facts and legal distinctions involved in determining whether a death occurred “solely through violent, extеrnal and accidental means,” or was merely accidental in result. The appellant’s husband, Norton Gordon, died after a self-administered and illegal injection of herоin. There was no contention that any mishap occurred during the actual act of injection of the drug. He had a history of narcotics addiction and the medical examiner, Dr. Breitenecker, indicated that death could have resulted from the heroin alone, either by hypersensitivity to the drug itself or a reaction to impurities frequently found in illicit drugs. He was of the opinion, however, that the more logical explanation for the death was to be found in the combined effect of the heroin with another drug found in the deсedent’s system. This latter drug was Doriden, a sedative or pain killer which was found in his blood in a 2.04 milligrams per cent concentration, not a lethal dose, but a higher than normal one. The doctor also pointed out that the heroin was not present in lethal quantities either, although he admitted because of the chemical breakdown *322 of heroin in the body, he could not determine how large a quantity of heroin was initially taken. Dr. Breitenecker further noted that narcotics users were aware of the substantial. risk involved in the self-administration of heroin. He сould not comment, however, on the degree of knowledge of the risk involved in combining heroin with Doriden. No explanation was offered as to how or why or under what circumstаnces the decedent was using Doriden, except that there were no apparent bodily injuries which would have justified its use as a pain killer.
Construing this evidence in the light most favоrable to the appellant, it appears that under either explanation a self-administered dose of heroin was a prime cause of the death in question, аcting either by itself or in combination with the Doriden. The possibility that the decedent may have been unaware of the risk in combining drugs becomes irrelevant when one of the drugs used, heroin, by itself carries with it a well known and substantial risk.
After paying normal death benefits of $4,000, the appellee Metropolitan Life Insurance Company refused to honor the dоuble indemnity provision of the insurance contract,
1
asserting that this death was not sustained
*323
“solely through violent, external and accidental means,” although it was conceded that this death was accidentаl in result. The trial court agreed with this contention on the basis of
Life Insurance Co. v. Plummer,
Appellant urges that we should overrule our previous decision in
Plummer,
and follow a number of jurisdictions whiсh have declined to make the distinction between accidental means and accidental results. See
Beckham v. Travelers Insurance Company,
“We adоpt the majority view that a means is not made accidental, within the terms of a policy providing for double indemnity in case of death resulting from bodily injury caused solely by externаl, violent and accidental means, merely because death results unexpectedly, where the means consists of a voluntary and intentional act occurring in the usual manner.”
Home, Etc. Company v. Partain,
This case on its facts does not warrant such a sweeping determination eithеr. When a man injects himself with a dangerous drug and no mishap occurs in the injection, though an unexpected result occurs, there is no reason to obliterate the distinction between means and results to insure that he can recover a double indemnity benefit. Perhaps in some cases there is no way to distinguish, but here with an intentional illegal act involving sеrious foreseeable risk, we are presented with cumulating evidence that this is not the type of hazard against which this policy provides.
“Obviously the purpose of acсident insurance is to protect the insured against accidents that occur while he is pursuing his business or pleasure, in the usual way, without any thought of being injured or killed, and when there is no рrobability, in the ordinary course of events, that he' will suffer injury or death.”
Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Neikirk,
In Partain, 205 Md. at pages 67-69, we focused upon the foreseeability of risk involved in the means employed. There, the insurеd provoked a fight during which his victim pushed him away, causing him to fall and suffer a fatal concussion. We found on those facts, less compelling than the facts in the instant case, that death was not an unreasonable possibility in such a situation. Here, with the use of an illegal drug without medical authorization or supervision, a drug with well known poten *325 tial for injury, we are hаrd pressed to say that a great amount of risk was not assumed, or was unforeseeable.
Justice Cardozo, in his famous dissent in
Landress v. Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Co,,
The main component of the bog is a wide variety of facts in a context even broader than the fact-smothered field of negligence law. The second component of the bog is contract language, which can vary with the imagination of insurance company legal staffs. The third feature is a noticeable lack of any legal standards to determine when an accident has occurred under the facts and the terms of the contract. The “Serbonian Bog” is not the distinction between means and results; it is rather the entire field of accident law. As long as we cannot control historical facts or ignore the language of contracts, we will be forced to slosh through the bog. The necessity of that march will not be avoided by saying, as Justice Cardozo would have us do, that one word, “means,” is equivalent to another, “cause.”
Cf., Linden Motor Freight Co., Inc. v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
The language of this contract and the precise facts of
*326
this case present a reasonably clear distinction betweеn nonaccidental means and accidental results. As we have held previously in
Plummer,
Judgment affirmed. Costs to be paid by appellant.
Notes
. “Section A.
Benefit Provisions
If, while insured under the Group Policy for Insurance for Death or Dismemberment by Accidental Means, the Employee sustains bodily injuries solely through violent, external and accidental means, and within ninety days thereafter suffers any of the losses specified in Section C hereof as a direct result of such bodily injuries independently of all other causes, the Insurance Company shall pay the amount of insurance specified for such loss in Section C hereof, provided, however, that in no case shall any payment be mаde for death or any other loss which is:
(A) caused wholly or partly, directly or indirectly, by disease or bodily or mental infirmity or by medical or surgical treatment or diagnosis thereof, or
(B) caused wholly or partly, directly or indirectly, by ptomaine or by bacterial infection, except only septic infection of and through a visible wound sustained *323 solely through violent, external and accidental means, or
(C) caused whоlly or partly, directly or indirectly, by hernia, no matter how or when sustained, or
(D) caused directly or indirectly by insurrection, war or any act of war, or
(E) caused by or resulting from intentional self-destruction or intentionally self-inflicted injury, while sane or insane.”
. The reference quoted in
Haynes v. Am. Cas. Co.,
“A gulf profound as that Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where Armies whole have sunk * *