Postmortem study to determine the pattern of skull fractures and intracranial hemorrhages in road traffic accidents in Patiala district, Punjab, India

Context: Accidents are considered as one of the major causes of death in present scenario with head injuries being the most serious in terms of morbidity and mortality. Primary damage triggered at moment of injury results in scalp laceration, skull fractures, contusion, laceration of brain, intra cranial hemorrhage and diffused axonal injury. Road traffic injuries are among one of the six leading causes of death in the age range of15 to 60 years in all countries of South East Asia region. The alarming increase in morbidity and mortality over past few decades associated with road traffic accidents is a matter of great concern globally.

Material and Methodology: A detailed post-mortem examination of all the external injuries was done in 100 cases as per standard norms. A standard autopsy procedure was carried out to dissect the body. The head of the selected case was dissected as per Virchow's method.

Results: The most common age group involved in fatal road traffic accidents was 21–30 years. Gender wise comparison reveled that males were more prone to road accidents as compared to females. Two wheelers were the commonest group of victims among different vehicle users. Subdural hemorrhage (91.17%) was found in most of the cases. Regarding head injuries, fracture of vault was reported to be the most common injury (39.21%) in the present study.

Conclusion: Road vehicles have no respect for anatomical boundaries or surgical specialties and multiple injuries were observed in all cases along with fracture of vault as major head injury. Combined intracranial hemorrhages were seen in most cases.