Out of a total of 3227 medicolegal post-mortem examinations conducted, the number of accidental deaths was 2279 (70.62 per cent). Vehicular accidents (1132) comprised 49.76 per cent of the total fatal accidents and 35.5 per cent of the total post-mortems. The incidence of males involved in accidents was 71.74 per cent which was about five times more than females (15.01 per cent). Children below 12 years comprised 13.25 per cent of vehicular accident victims. The most common victim involved was the pedestrian comprising 50.7 per cent, followed by the motorcyclist (18.28 per cent). The commonest age group involved in fatal vehicular accidents was between 21-40 years (521 cases, 46.01 per cent). Persons between the age group 11-20 years accounted for 13.69 per cent. Trucks were responsible for accidents in 28.09 per cent of cases, buses in 17.14 per cent and cars in 22.99 per cent. Most of the victims died on the spot (36.30 per cent). A total of 72.5 per cent of the victims died within 24 hours. All victims survived up to a maximum of only 2 weeks, except one case who survived 29 days and died of pyogenic meningitis. Head injuries were responsible for causing death in 71.99 per cent of cases. Chest injuries caused death in 6.18 per cent of cases and abdominal injuries proved fatal in 7.06 per cent of cases. Death by injury to other regions occurred in 15.54 per cent of cases. The incidence of cranio-intracranial injuries was highest in cyclists (78.93 per cent), followed by motorcyclists (72.46 per cent) and pedestrians (66.02 per cent). The number of car occupants involved in fatal accidents was 65.3 per cent. Fracture of the skull was observed in 79.87 per cent of cases; the most common bone involved was the temporal bone (58.67 per cent), followed by the occipital bone (57.75 per cent). Fractures of parietal and frontal bone were almost equal, being 50.38 per cent and 49.37 per cent respectively. The commonest variety of intracranial haemmorhage was subarachnoid haemorrhage (66.9 per cent), followed by subdural haemorrhage (58.2 per cent) and extradural haemorrhage (14.2 per cent). Extradural haemorrhage was least common (14.2 per cent). Intracerebral haemorrhage was found in 22.5 per cent of cases and brain stem haemorrhage in 10.81 per cent. The incidences of contusion and laceration of the brain were almost equal, being 23.6 per cent and 24.8 per cent respectively. Fracture of the ribs was the commonest chest injury, with contusion and laceration of the lung in 18.6 per cent of cases. Laceration of the liver was commonly found in abdominal injury in 17.2 per cent of cases. These findings have been compared with other authors. An attempt was also made in the present study to correlate the post-mortem findings and the survival time.
Abstract