Abstract
Introduction Road traffic trauma is a preventable cause of morbidity and mortality across the globe. A wide array of automotive safety measures have been implemented over several decades. They provide with active safety and passive safety. Seatbelts and supplementary restraint systems (SRS airbags) have undoubtedly been recognized as two important passive safety measures for vehicle occupants though they themselves may occasionally cause significant injuries in severe crashes. Injuries caused by inbuilt safety devices upon the occupants often come in atypical forms whose interpretation would be dubious unless carefully appreciated by forensic medical practitioner. This fact is elaborated with the following two case examples. Case reports The first case is regarding superficial burns on the face as a result of the deployment of airbags. The exact type, mechanism and the cause of the injuries were not recognized during the initial management. The second case is a diaphragmatic rupture which is extremely rare in healthy individuals with properly fastened seatbelts. Conclusions Injuries of both cases were properly interpreted at the clinical forensic examination. As correctly expected from a clinician he or she very justly pays more attention on the acute management, critical care and therapeutic aspects of such injuries rather than attempting to identify the exact type, mechanism of causation and other medico-legally significant issues. Yet, in the big picture outside the boundaries of providing critical care, including the implementation of preventive measures, precise identification and interpretation of such injuries become the vital obligation of the forensic medical expert.
Highlights
Road traffic trauma is a preventable cause of morbidity and mortality across the globe
Injuries caused by inbuilt safety devices upon the occupants often come in atypical forms whose interpretation would be dubious unless carefully appreciated by forensic medical practitioner
In the big picture outside the boundaries of providing critical care, including the implementation of preventive measures, precise identification and interpretation of such injuries become the vital obligation of the forensic medical expert
Summary
Automotive safety measures are generally divided into two: active and passive; based on as to how a particular mechanism behaves during a crisis situation of the vehicle. Case report 2 A thirty-year-old male was sleeping in the front seat of a saloon car, quite inebriated after a party, with the seatbelt fastened, when the vehicle met with a frontal collision at a substantial speed against a lorry parked by the side of the road without parking lights He was unconscious on admission to a tertiary care hospital and he could not remember anything about the incident. He had only minor external injuries on the body including minor abrasions and healing abraded superficial lacerations on the medial end of the left clavicle (Fig. 2). The forensic specialist suspected the possibility of the impaction of the seatbelt in causing the diaphragmatic injury He had to carefully exclude any other forms of direct trauma over the anterior abdomen with the light of the history, examination and the post-crash analysis of the vehicle. The scene investigation did not reveal any explicable mechanism in causing such injuries other than the seatbelt worn at the time of the accident
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