Head Injury in Road Traffic Accidents - A Study from North East India.

Introduction: India is undergoing major economic anddemographic transition with increased urbanization,industrialization, construction projects and motorization. Headinjury is the result of variety of mechanisms including motorvehicle and motor cycle accidents, pedestrians being struckby motor vehicles, falls from heights, occupational hazards,assaults, riots and bomb blasts. India has second highestreported mortality rate of 29.2 per 100000 people from roadtraffic injuries. Injuries are reported to be the seventh leadingcause of death (11% of all deaths) in India, with road trafficinjuries making up to 78% of them (WHO, 1999). Currentresearch aimed to study pattern of Head Injury in Road TrafficAccidents from North East India.Material and Methods: This study was conducted on medicolegal cases coming for autopsy in Department of ForensicMedicine, Guwahati Medical College and Hospital, Guwahatiduring the period of 1st August, 2009 to 31st July 2010. Duringthis period a total 2474 autopsies were performed in ourdepartment with 815 cases had head injuries. After obtainingthe necessary and relevant information about the victim, athorough and complete autopsy was performed on the deadbody, recording the findings on the proforma.Result: Our findings are similar to above studies and also tothe studies of Sevitt S (1973), Chandra J et al (1979), TyagiAK (1986), Motto L (1988) and Basu R et al (1992), Dandonaand Mishra (2004), Menon A and Nagesh KR (2005). Mostcommon cause of head injury is Road side accident (21.26%),most commonly occurring during office hours (6-9am)(25.45%) with 4 wheelers being most common offendingvehicle(49.39%).Conclusion: Road are like arteries of country. Vehicles mustrun for development of country and necessities of life. Injurieson head and other parts of body due to road traffic incidentsare unavoidable but with scientific data, we can minimize theloss of life and misery due to death and injury. We shoulddesign our interventions based on these data and studies.

Toxicology unit in department of forensic medicine emphasis from a study from North East India.

In suspected poisoning cases the final opinion as to the cause of death is generally kept pending till receipt of the chemical analysis report from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL). Cases of suspected poisoning deaths from Kamrup district coming to the GMCH morgue were studied from 1st August 2008 to 31st August 2009 with aim of analyzing the time consumed at various levels. A total of 2592 autopsies were performed during study period and in 160 cases viscera were preserved. Viscera Report of 60 is awaited as on 1st November 2009. 31 cases gave positive results for poison and 69 cases gave negative report. In 21.9% of cases police took more than a month to take the samples to SFSL and in more than 47.5% cases SFSL took >2 months to convey report. In nearly all cases the final opinion as to the cause of death was given the same day on which the report was received. So, establishment of Toxicological Laboratories in Dept of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology can minimize this delay.

Serial bomb blasts in north-east India: A postmortem study.

Terrorism has become a global phenomenon and most of the countries, whether developed or developing, are facing terror activities. Recently the terror activities have become a regular feature in India where more than 15 major terrorist strikes occurred from 2008 to 2010. Assam, the gateway of northeast India, on 30th October 2008 witnessed a strategically planned terrorist multiple consequential serial bomb blast attack where more than 13 bombs were exploded within a span of merely 10-20 minutes. The news on the next day indicated the initial death of 66 persons; and 470 sustained minor to severe injuries during the explosions in different places. Out of these ultimately 90 persons had died, which was the highest mortality in any blast in the Assam till that date. The dead bodies of 56 victims were brought to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital mortuary for postmortem examination. During autopsy apart from the demographic data collected on interaction with police, relatives of the victims and inquest papers of every victim, the postmortem findings were recorded in details and the difficulties faced in the management of this disaster in mortuary will be discussed in this paper.