A propósito de la muerte de Cano de Aponte y los accidentes ecuestres / On the death of Gabriel Cano de Aponte

ABSTRACT

Gabriel Cano de Aponte was Governor of Chile since 1717 and util his death in 1733, being 68 years old. As a soldier, he was an experimented horse rider. The sequence ofevents that caused his death three months after an equestrian accident are unclear. A systematic clinical analysis of the later is the main objective of this review. Historians have documented Cano de Aponte's "inclination for unbridled fun and equestrian exercises". During a holiday Cano de Aponte suffered a horse fall and subsequent crushing by the latter. It has been stated that a spinal lesion caused by the accident kept him bedridden for a period of three months, clear in reason and with intense pain, before his death. However, there is no evidence on historie data that conveys any typical sign associated to spinal injury following the accident. Therefore we suggest that Cano de Aponte suffered a complex pelvic ring fracture. The fact that he was prostrated, lucid, but suffered and intense pain best sustains the hypothesis of a pelvic fracture. After the initial period, one ofthe most common causes of death resulting from a pelvic fracture is deep venous thrombosis with secondary pulmonary thromboembolism. This must have been the sequence ofevents that most probably caused Cano de Aponte's death).