Forensic Aspects of Trauma 2 Flashcards
What are typical defensive type injuries?
Can be blunt or sharp force
What can defensive type injuries be classed as?
- Passive
- Victim raises arms and legs for protection
- Sliced, shelved often with skin flaps over back of hands and forearms
- Active
- Victim tries to grab weapon or attackers hand
- Sliced shelved incised wounds on palmer aspects of hands and web spaces between fingers
What are passive and active defensive type injuries?
- Passive
- Victim raises arms and legs for protection
- Sliced, shelved often with skin flaps over back of hands and forearms
- Active
- Victim tries to grab weapon or attackers hand
- Sliced shelved incised wounds on palmer aspects of hands and web spaces between fingers
How can you identify self-inflicted injuries?
- Commonly sharp force
- Site of election
- Often wrists, forearms, chest and abdomen
- Parallel, multiple and tentative incisions
- Positions of clothing
What are common sites of injuries for self-inflicted injuries?
- Often wrists, forearms, chest and abdomen
What do the consequences of an injury depend on?
- Type of mechanical insult
- Blunt, sharp, homicidal, suicide, accident etc
- Nature of target tissue
- Head, chest, abdomen, fat
- Forces involved
- High speed RTC, fall from height, kicking, stamping, punch
- Number of impacts
- Single vs multiple
What are examples of head injuries?
- Standard skin injuries from before
- Skull fractures
- Linear, depressed
- Bleeding over brain
What are the different kinds of skull fracture?
- Linear, depressed
What is bleeding over the brain associated with?
Fractures
- Subarachnoid
- Often caused by aneurysm
- But can also occur due to trauma, called traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage
- Usually due to punch at jaw, causing rapid rotational movement of head
- Immediate unconsciousness and cardiac arrest, so suspected to be brainstem damage
- Subdural
- Venous blood so accumulates slow
- Extradural
- Arterial blood so accumulates quick
What is subarachnoid haemorrhage often caused by?
- Often caused by aneurysm
- But can also occur due to trauma, called traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage
- Usually due to punch at jaw, causing rapid rotational movement of head
- Immediate unconsciousness and cardiac arrest, so suspected to be brainstem damage
What speed do the following present:
- subarachnoid haemorrhage
- subdural haemorrhage
- extradural haemorrhage
- Subarachnoid
- Immediate unconsciousness and cardiac arrest, so suspected to be brainstem damage
- Subdural
- Venous blood so accumulates slow
- Extradural
- Arterial blood so accumulates quick
Do the following involve arterial or venous blood:
- subdural haemorrhage
- extradural haemorrhage
- Subdural
- Venous blood so accumulates slow
- Extradural
- Arterial blood so accumulates quick
How does the outcome of brain haemorrhage vary with volume of blood?
What is a brain diffuse injury?
- Diffuse axonal injury (immediate and prolonged coma with no apparent mass lesion or metabolic abnormality) is the clinical term for traumatic axonal injury pathological term (damaged axons due to trauma)
- TAI can be focal or diffuse (grade 1-3 based on severity)
What does internal damage often depend on?
Type of injuries
What internal injuries are often seen in blunt force for the following areas:
- ribs
- lungs
- heart
- aorta
- abdomen
What internal injuries are often seen in sharp force for the following areas:
- ribs
- lungs
- heart
- aorta
- abdomen
