Citation

Das S, Menezes RG. Med. Leg. J. 2018; 86(1): 52-54.

Affiliation

Forensic Medicine Division, Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, King Fahad Hospital of the University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Medico-Legal Society, Publisher SAGE Publications)

DOI

10.1177/0025817217741433

PMID

29199883

Abstract

Road traffic accidents are a major cause of fatalities around the world, and a number of deaths are caused by moving traffic on public roads. Deaths from vehicles that are off the highway may be called non-traffic fatalities which can be due to a vehicle reversing, carbon monoxide poisoning, weather-induced over-heating inside the vehicle and electric windows. Children (and animals) are the usual victims. We report a case from India where a man was found lying dead by the roadside with a lorry nearby. The autopsy findings indicated that he had been run over, but as there was no history of a vehicular collision and with no eyewitnesses, the investigators were unsure of the probable sequence of events that led to his death. The autopsy findings, history, circumstantial evidence and chemical analysis enabled us to work out what had happened.

Language: en

Keywords

Death from a parked lorry; alcohol intoxicated driver; run over