Science & Research (Feb 2023)
MEDICOLEGAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FATAL FALLS FROM A HEIGHT
Abstract
Falling from a height can be defined as the movement of the body to a lower level than the state it is on, under the influence of gravity, due to carelessness, imbalance or voluntary actions of oneself or another person. The circumstances in which falls occur are always suicides, but sometimes they can be accidents and very rarely - homicides. An important indicator and predictor of expected traumatic injuries is height. Most authors accept its division into three groups: 9m. The locations of injuries in falls from a height can be divided into several groups: head and neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, upper and lower limbs. Aim and objectives: to analyze the characteristics of traumatic injuries in falls from a height at different heights. Materials and methods: retrospective study in the department of forensic medicine in Plovdiv over a period of 5 years on cadavers of people over 18 year-old who died as a result of a fall from a height. Results and discussion: the results show male predominance - 71% of all cases. Regarding the height from which the fall occurred, the most cases are in the group over 9m - 77%, and the least from under 3m - 9.6%. The circumstances under which the death occurred show that in 76% of the cases it was a suicide, and in the remaining 24% it was an accident. The most frequent location of the identified injuries is in the chest area (95.2%), followed by the head and neck - 92.3%. Conclusion: Falls from height rank among the top injury-related deaths, accounting for a high percentage of injuries from a blunt trauma.
