Bleeding to death because of hemorrhage into soft tissues as a cause of death in a beaten battered child

Abstract

Introduction. Bleeding to death is one of the leading causes of death speaking about violent death in general. Bleeding to death mostly happens through hurt organs or blood vessels of thorax, abdomen and neck or because of destruction of extremities or the whole body. Bleeding to death is very often the consequence of blood pouring, rarely of simultaneous pouring and suffusing of blood, and it is extremely rarely the result of blood suffusing solely and especially due to subcutaneous, retoperitoneal and intramediastinal blood suffusing. Fatal bleeding into soft tissues solely is very rare. During a 10- year- period among 3 000 performed autopsies in the Department of Forensic Medicine in Podgorica, the presented case was the unique one. Case report. The paper presents a 5-year-old boy who was beaten to death by his mother and step-father and died because of massive bleeding into soft tissues. Conclusion. In order to establish a cause of death in cases of exsanguination in soft tissues, a series of postmortem diagnostic procedures should be performed, like those presented in this paper.

Keywords

• hemorrhage
• soft tissue injuries
• death
• battered child abuse