Different types of injuries

Now we’re going to discuss injuries. As already I’ve reiterated, discovering all the injuries is crucial to undertaking a good quality post-mortem examination. Doing this is one of the reasons why the external examination takes as long as it does. The injury needs to be discovered, described and recorded, including photographed. So the different types of common injuries can be categorized as follows. Abrasion. Abrasion is a superficial injury involving the epidermis, the outer layer of the skin, which technically does not bleed. But for ease of communication. We allow the term to be used for injuries which are bleeding, which were obviously caused by abrading actions.

Subcategories of abrasion are a scratch, a scrape such as on your knee when you fall over on the concrete and impact abrasion or a friction abrasion. The next type of injury is a bruise, a result of a blunt impact, damaging blood vessels and resulting in blood moving out into the surrounding tissues. We’ve all had experiences of bruises especially of our skin, but all organs and most tissues can bruise and we’ll probably feel it if it does, and probably be even seriously ill as a consequence. For example, of a bruise to the brain following head injury or to the heart following a chest injury. Laceration. A tear or split in the skin.

Usually the skin, but it can also occur in any organ or tissue. Resulting again from the application of blunt force of some type. They’re different lacerations to stab to incised wounds. These are wounds which result from sharp edged implements. Lacerations have irregular edges, bruised margins because of the blunt nature of the causative force. And the wound gap can be straddled by bridges of different tissues in the bed of the laceration. Fat, nerves, blood vessels are all very different and tear at different tensile forces. A stabbed or incised wound is caused by a sharp edged implement and will divide everything in its path, unlike the laceration. Its edges a very even.

An incised wound is longer on the skin than it is deep into the tissues. And a stab wound is one which extends further into the tissue than its extent on the skin. There are several other injury types which are less frequent gunshot wounds, injuries associated with heat, from sunburn to fire and cold, from ice to liquid nitrogen, electrical injuries from a simple electrical spark up to and including lightning strikes.