Interpretation of injuries and causes of death among victims of fatal road traffic accidents at KLES's Dr Prabhakar Kore Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Belgaum–a cross sectional study

Deaths due to Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) are increasing at an alarming rate throughout the world. Thereby it poses itself as a major epidemiological and medico legal problem. Victims of RTAs sustain large varieties of injuries and many of them are fatal or dangerous to life. The studies of pattern of injuries help in the reconstruction of RTA. The study of injuries associated with fatal outcome helps in implementation of measures to prevent fatalities due to RTAs. Hence, the present study was conducted on victims of fatal RTAs to know, injury pattern, survival period, incidence in relation to age and sex; time diurnal) and seasons. In addition, an attempt was also made to know the cause of death.

The present cross sectional study is the post mortem study carried out on the victims of fatal RTAs who died while undergoing treatment in the KLES's Dr Prabhakar Kore Hospital & medical research centre, Belgaum, during the period from 15-11-2006 to 14-11-2007.

RTA related deaths accounted for 56.81% of total medico legal autopsies conducted during the study period. Males out numbered the females with the ratio of 8.09:1. Most commonly involved Age group was 21–30 years (28%). Maximum numbers (42%) of RTAs recorded in the evening hours and season wise (48%) in the winter. Head and neck injuries were in maximum number of victims (87%), followed by thoracic injuries (12%). More than 1/3rd of victims (45%) died between 24 hours and 1 week after sustaining injuries. Intracranial injuries irrespective of skull fracture were responsible for death in 85 cases (85%) followed by due to hemorrhagic shock (7%).

Intracranial injury is the most common finding in the study. It is observed that in majority of cases, intracranial injury especially with skull fracture either directly or indirectly contributed the cause of death. Moreover, the treatment of skull fracture and intracranial injuries were not successfully even in tertiary level hospitals, could be due to the physiological & anatomical configuration of brain. Hence, it proves that the fatality due to intracranial injury can be reduced by preventing the incidence of such injuries instead of treating them. So, prevention is better than cure stands true in intracranial injuries.