Blunt Trauma

Injuries due to blunt trauma are commonly seen in medicolegal autopsy practice. In contrast to cases of penetrating trauma where evidence, i.e., a bullet or victim’s blood on a knife, can be collected and analyzed to link a firearm or a sharp instrument, respectively, connecting cutaneous blunt trauma injuries to their specific origins, i.e., patterned injuries, is the exception. Compared with penetrating trauma where tissue damage is confined to defined wound tracks, scenarios causing internal blunt trauma injuries can affect a wide range of organs and tissues. “Multiple blunt trauma injuries” may appear random at autopsy, but recognition by the pathologist of an injury pattern, i.e., an anatomic distribution of injuries typically associated with a certain trauma scenario, advances the medicolegal death investigation by establishing the circumstances of a person’s death. The immediate sequela or mechanism of death, i.e., hemorrhage in a body cavity is usually apparent, but its origin may have a number of differential causes that need to be explored during the postmortem to accurately determine the cause of death. In some cases, the circumstances and injury patterns indicate that other mechanisms of death have occurred or are possible.