Journal article
Fatal thoracic impalement on postmortem imaging.
- Germerott T Institute of Forensic Medicine, Center of Forensic Imaging and Virtopsy, University of Berne, Berne, Switzerland. tanja.germerott@irm.unibe.ch
- Flach PM
- Furter M
- Ampanozi G
- Ruder TD
- Thali MJ
- 2010-12-07
Published in:
- Legal medicine (Tokyo, Japan). - 2011
Accidents, Traffic
Autopsy
Coronary Angiography
Diagnostic Imaging
Forensic Pathology
Hemothorax
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Angiography
Male
Radiography, Thoracic
Tomography, X-Ray Computed
Wounds, Penetrating
Young Adult
English
In the present paper, the authors describe a case of fatal thoracic impalement in a victim of a road traffic accident, by penetration of a metal handrail. The driver lost control of his car while overtaking three cars. Due to the force of the vehicle collision with a metal railing, the upper cross bar penetrated the front of the car and subsequently the driver was pierced by the center-pillar in the car. Death occurred at the scene of the accident. Postmortem, computed tomography, computed tomography angiography and a magnetic resonance tomography were performed and revealed severe heart destruction and hemorrhage as cause of death. The present case report shows that postmortem imaging might have value as a screening method to decide whether arising forensic questions can be answered just by imaging like in the presented case or if further examinations such as conventional autopsy are required.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- closed
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1016/j.legalmed.2010.11.001
- PMID 21131226
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/182909
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