Citation

Wagner R, Muggenthaler H, Sauer S, Mall G, Hubig M. Int. J. Legal Med. 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Institute of Legal Medicine, Jena University Hospital - Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, Am Klinikum 1, 07747, Jena, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00414-019-02133-x

PMID

31388796

Abstract

Fatal head injuries are frequently seen in pedestrians hit by motorized vehicles. In our case, the pedestrian sustained a devastating head injury with skull splitting in the mediosagittal plane. A car collided with a traffic sign causing a bending of the pole. The metal pole hit a man standing close beside it; the man had a head injury severity that is more commonly due to falling objects than due to traffic accidents. Assuming a head mass of 5 kg, simplified calculations yield maximum contact forces of ca. 36 kN exceeding mean parietal fracture forces which are in the order of magnitude of 12.5 kN. The influences of the effective body mass and the horizontal distance between the pole and the pedestrian on maximum contact forces are investigated. High contact forces in our case can be mainly explained by the comparably high impact velocity and by a partial mass transfer of the total car mass to the pole.

Language: en

Keywords

Bending traffic sign pole; Head injury; Pedestrian accident; Trauma biomechanics