This is a case report of a patient with a stab injury into the heart. It highlights the successful management in view of the limited facilities and personnel in a district hospital. This may probably be the first operation of its kind in the country.
There have been very few reports of swordfish attacks on humans and none have resulted in death. Although there are no reports of unprovoked attacks on humans, swordfish can be very dangerous when provoked and they can jump and use their swords to pierce their target. We describe here an unusual case of death that resulted from intracranial penetrating injury caused by a swordfish.
Accidental stab wounds caused by door handles are rare. A case is presented where a boy sustained a stab injury by a door handle with resultant impaction of the door handle into his forearm. The injury was possibly predisposed by the design of the door lock-and-handle complex and precipitated by his activity, both of which could have been avoided by a different design of the door lock and handle complex and perhaps closer supervision while at school.
Several studies have been performed to recognize the main features in homicide and suicide sharp wound-related death, revealing that a single cutting wound to the neck is an infrequent event in suicide cases, and several hesitation marks near the fatal injury are usually present. We report a case of an atypical self-inflicted cutthroat injury without tentative marks involving a 79-year-old female. The weapon used, a kitchen knife, was found at the crime scene. The wound had clean margins, and no other incisions were found. Scene circumstances, namely the absence of signs of a break-in, the victim found on the bed, the knife located near the body, the vital wound in an accessible site, and the absence of defense injuries, collectively support a likely suicide. A literature review was also performed to compare forensic data of the case presented with the other 6 cases reported regarding atypical suicide characterized by a single incising cut to the throat without hesitation marks. Given the few cases reported and the lack of gross descriptions and histopathological data available in the literature, additional knowledge of such a case may help forensic pathologists in the identification of suicidal events when a single neck injury is observed. In this frame, suicide by a unique single incising cut to the throat without hesitation marks near the lethal injury may be observed as an atypical presentation, and the crime scene investigation, together with additional background information of the deceased, aid in the identification of the manner of the death.
Penetrating injury to the abdominal viscera is not uncommon unless when it is caused by marine life. We present a 39-year-old fisherman from a tropical country who had sustained a penetrating injury from a stab wound to the abdomen due to needlefish impalement. He sustained a small perforation of the sigmoid colon during exploratory laparotomy and primary repair was done. Although this incident is rare, there are cases involving seawater activities either for leisure, sport or diving for fishing. We highlight this rare incident and discuss the management plan.
We report two cases of body piercing as a religious practice that subsequently led to the development of granulomatous nodules at previously punctured sites of the skin and oral mucosa. These lesions were diagnosed as sarcoid-like foreign body reaction after other possible causes including sarcoidosis, tuberculosis, tuberculoid leprosy, fungal infections, viral infections, and Crohn's disease were excluded.
An adult male sustained a number of stab injuries and other injuries including a fatal stab injury to the neck. There was evidence of air embolism which was considered to be a major factor causing death. The discussion is in four parts. Part I is confined to the post mortem examination. Part II relates to the medico-legal aspects of the case. Part III is a general discussion on embolism and its medico-legal significance whilst Part IV is on the medico-legal aspects of air embolism.
Urban cities are synonym with a high incidence of penetrating chest injuries either from accidents or interpersonal violence. The outcome of penetrating chest wound can vary from immediate death to a prolonged morbidity. We here report a case of 39-year-gentleman who presented to Emergency Department Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun, Ipoh, Perak after being stabbed to the chest. His anterior penetrating chest wound was located at the 5th intercostal space medial to the midclavicular line. The stab wound penetrated the myocardium, causing minimal myocardial rupture. He also suffered from left haemothorax and hemopericardium. The haemothorax was drained with insertion of 32 French chest tube. The patient was admitted under the cardiothoracic team and discharged five days later without surgical intervention. He presented again to the Emergency Department with complains of shortness of breath and pleuritic pain. A left ventricular thrombus was detected via echocardiography. Unfortunately, he took his own discharge. Five days later he came again to Emergency Department with sporadic of loss of vision. The mural thrombus dislodged and embolized to the retinal artery causing amaurosis fugax. The patient was treated with aspirin 150mg and his symptoms subsequently resolved.