Compound mechanism of fatal neck injury: A case report of a tiger attack in a zoo

Abstract

Fatal injuries caused by attacks by large wild cats are extremely rare in forensic medical practice in Europe. There are very few cases described in the forensic medical literature concerning incidents in zoos similar to the tiger attack on a 58-year-old male zoo employee that we present here. While preparing a runway for tigers, the man was attacked by a male Sumatran tiger. Another zoo employee was an eyewitness to the accident; in his testimony he described the sequence of events in detail. The autopsy showed the injuries typical of a tiger attack: traces of claws and canine teeth indicating that the victim of the attack was knocked down from behind, along with deep and extensive fatal wounds to the neck. The injuries were inflicted by means of a compound mechanism: tissues were penetrated by the animal’s canines, crushed with great force (transfixing injury), and violently distended. The skin revealed four characteristic deep wounds caused by canines as well as bite marks resulting from the action of six incisors. The neck area revealed extensive damage, including torn muscles, the esophagus and trachea, large blood vessels of the neck, and fractures of vertebrae C2 and C5 with internal channels resulting directly from penetration by the animal’s canines. The mechanism of distension, as a result of the animal jerking its head after biting the victim in the neck, produced a complete tear of the spine and the vertebral arteries, as well as an intramural rupture of the carotid arteries which has never been described before. In the interests of a detailed assessment of bone damage, the cervical spine was macerated. The applied autopsy techniques and detailed analysis of injuries enabled us to demonstrate the compound mechanism that inflicted them, combining penetration of tissues by the canines, crushing, and distension.