Pseudo-gunshot wound injury from perforating rib fracture: a cautionary case report
- PDF / 167,154 Bytes
- 3 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 24 Downloads / 185 Views
CASE REPORT
Pseudo-gunshot wound injury from perforating rib fracture: a cautionary case report Paranirubasingam Paranitharan Æ Jacqueline L. Parai Æ Michael S. Pollanen
Accepted: 15 June 2007 / Published online: 9 September 2007 Humana Press Inc. 2007
Abstract We report a case of a young woman who was found unresponsive in a garbage dumpster beneath the balcony of her 9th floor apartment residence. Initial investigations by the police and coroner raised concerns regarding the circumstances of the death. Initial examination of the body, revealed a single penetrating injury on the chest with a wide abrasion collar––the injury pattern was similar to a gunshot entry wound or a shored exit wound. Autopsy revealed the abraded skin perforation along with major chest injuries with bruising of the chest wall, extensive comminuted rib fractures, and pleural and lung lacerations. These injuries were consistent with the effects of a fatal descent from height. The penetrating injury with the abrasion collar was due to a fractured end of a rib protruding through the skin mimicking a gunshot wound. The involvement of a firearm was further excluded by postmortem radiography (no projectile in situ), detailed external examination of the clothing, and scene investigation revealing that the decedent had descended from a balcony into the dumpster. This case underscores the concept that all round penetrating wounds with abrasion collars are not gunshot injuries. Keywords Rib fracture Blunt trauma Penetrating injury Forensic Pathology
Introduction Penetrating and perforating wounds of body cavities are often classified by the mechanism of injury and the precise morphological features of the wound. Most penetrating and perforating wounds are due to gunshot or sharp force injuries, and the nature of the wound, size, shape, and borders (wound margins) often provide specific information about how the wound occurred (e.g., range of firearm discharge in a gunshot wound of entrance). The margin or borders of a wound often provide important observations, particularly, in gunshot wounds. The presence and distribution of marginal abrasions in a gunshot wound can be used to determine, if the injury is an entrance wound and the angle of incidence of the wound, respectively. However, it is well recognized that some gunshot wounds of exit can have abrasion collars that mimic entrance wounds, so-called shored exit wounds [1]. In this case report, we describe a round penetrating injury with a marginal abrasion that is a mimicker of a gunshot entrance wound and a shored exit wound. In this case a young woman was initially believed to have died from a gunshot wound. However, autopsy revealed that the ‘gunshot wound’ was a non-firearm related injury.
Case report P. Paranitharan J. L. Parai M. S. Pollanen (&) Provincial Forensic Pathology Unit, Office of the Chief Coroner, 26 Grenville Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M7A 2G9 e-mail: [email protected] P. Paranitharan J. L. Parai M. S. Pollanen Department of Laboratory Medicine and
Data Loading...
