Forensic Medicine Lecture 2 - Chapter 6

main causal factors vehicle accidents

• men - psychosomatic health, recklnessness, selfishness

secondary causal factors of vehicle accidents

• technical faults

  • road conditions

favourable causal factors vehicle accidents

• weather condition

• sdegree illumination

• high speed

• altered consciousness

effects on pedestrians hit by vehicles w/ tires depend on

• speed

• type vehicle

• side of vehicle w which impact occurs and anatomical area hit

mechanisms of pedestrian hit by vehicle w/ tire

simple - hit, fall, projecting, compressing, dragging, ironing

associated - groups 2 simple ones

complex - 3+ simple ones, fatal, OA injuries, mulitpolar

particularities of train pedestrian hit

• polytrauma, rapid death, traces oil, fragments scattered over long distance

effects of pedestrian-train accidents

• sectioned body segments

• complex mechanisms impact

• compression band parchment-like skin at amputation site

effects suicidal pedestrian-train hit

decapitation/hemicorporectomy

signs murder pedestrian-train hit

hands and feet tied, other signs violence

concealing a crime in pedestrian-train hit - key sign

total lack of vital response to train injuries

mechanisms motorcyclist

• frontal/lat collisions w/ obstacle - localized injuries to legs

• skidding/rolling

• lat collisions

  • sudden braking - projection

injuries motorcyclist

• lesions following projections most severe

• head trauma - fx falling into vertex, penetration spine into foramen magnum, compression bulb

• long bones, antero-lat pelvis, rib fx

• sliding - outer and inner pelvic limb injuries

• int organ lesion

steering wheel sd (if driver is unrestricted)

• hitting with steering wheel

• semicirc ecchymosis in thorax

• rib/sternal fx

  • abd visceral injuries, hand injuries

dashboard sd (if driver unrestricted)

• knee injury, patella fx, calf bone fx

• femoral neck fx

  • pelvic fx

windshield sd (if driver unrestricted)

• head impact, viscerocranium level

  • visceral and neurocranial fx

seat belt sd (restricted driver)

• ecchymosis - diagonally from upper l → r hemithorax, transversally in lower 1/3 of abd

• excoriated areas

  • rib fx

airbag sd

generated by viscerocranium impact w/ airbag

excoriations, ecchymosis

nasal pyramid fx, sup burns, hearing disorders

pedal sd

• leg + feet injuries from braking

• penetration femoral head to acetabular cavity

In the case of a passenger that is unrestricted with seat belt, he will be projected :

forward and upwards, with traumatic injuries located mainly on the right sid