Peculiarities of bodily injuries’ forensic diagnosing, which received driver and passengers in car accidents

Abstract

Determination of the injured person’s place inside the car at the moment of accident is one of the most complex tasks during the forensic-medical examination. Applied today methodic takes to consideration predominantly the head-on collision of the cars or of the car with solid object and does not take other types of car accidents, accompanied with vehicle rollover and contact with rear part of the car. As a result, it determines the injuries, caused by steering wheel and other spare parts of car’s interior from driver’s side, as specific ones for car accidents. Analysis has shown that any complex forensic-medical and transport-trasological examination with aim to determine who occupied the driver’s and passenger’s seats at the moment of accident should contain several stages. At first it is necessary to determine the directions of shock-inertial displacement of the injured persons’ bodies inside the car at the collision moment. The second stage determines the traumatic details of car interior (taking to consideration displacement of the bodies inside the car at the moment of accident). The character of bodily injuries, their localization and mechanism of development are detected on the third stage. The final stage shows which of the bodily injuries have formed after the contact with appropriate details of car interior. Consequently, it is necessary to consider the car’s interior geometry change, what reflects on the free space for the driver or passenger of the car. Results of the research proved, that modern protective means of a car considerably change the morphology of passenger’s and driver’s bodily injuries from one hand, and from another – they could cause much more considerable injuries and even death. Angle of the car contact with another car or with the barrier is a significant parameter, which plays an important role in determination of persons’ interposition inside the vehicle at the moment of accident.