Analysis of the Severity of Traumatic Injuries Resulted from Traffic Accidents and their Location on the Victims’ Body - Case Report

Abstract

: Introduction. Traffic accidents represent one of the most common causes of violent deaths in legal medicine. Traumatic injuries resulting from them can directly contribute to the cause of death and their location on the victims’ body may indicate the position the victims occupied in the vehicle. Case report. We analyzed the case of a 71-year-old man who was involved in a traffic accident and died eight days after being hospitalized. The victim’s autopsy was performed at the Institute of Legal Medicine Timisoara. Subsequently, in this case the police asked for a new forensic report to establish the severity of the traumatic injuries and their role in the thanatogenerating process and the position the victim occupied in the vehicle. The autopsy established that the cause of death was vertebro-medullary trauma involving the cervical and thoracic spine with fractures of vertebral bodies involving the spinal cord, in a polytrauma with a craniocerebral component and a thoracic component. The new forensic report maintained the conclusions of the autopsy report and established by analyzing the location of the traumatic injuries on the victim’s body that the victim might have been in the driver’s seat. Conclusions. Deaths from traffic accidents represent for a forensic expert a subject of great interest. The main aims are to establish the cause of death and the role the traumatic injuries play in the thanatogenerating process. Moreover, the type of traumatic injuries and their location on the victim’s body may suggest the position the victim occupied in the vehicle.