Citation

De-Giorgio F, Vetrugno G, Spagnolo A, Martinotti G. Rom. J. Leg. Med. 2018; 26(3): 246-248.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Romanian Legal Medicine Society)

DOI

10.4323/rjlm.2018.246

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In railway suicides, the interest of forensic pathologists is often limited to mere external inspections and autopsy findings. It is our belief that a global examination of these cases ought to be de rigueur because of the heavy burden of psychological connotations that the desire of being run over by a train usually carries. The typical position of those who decide to lay themselves across the rail tracks is usually functional to achieve death by decapitation, a sudden and unpainful method of committing suicide. Our case report deals with a man who, according to testimonies, chose to expose his abdomen to the passage of an oncoming locomotive. We focus on the similarities between this uncommon method of suicide and a typical intentional evisceration, the hara-kiri. © 2018 Romanian Society of Legal Medicine.

Language: en

Keywords

adult; human; suicide; male; autopsy; case report; forensic pathology; Forensic autopsy; psychological aspect; clinical article; middle aged; falling; decapitation; Article; abdomen; hemoperitoneum; Railway suicide; Hara-kiri; locomotion; position; lumbar vertebra; evisceration; abdominal aorta; upper limb; lumbar region; Abdominal injury; railway related suicidal death; Run over by train