Medico-Legal Update

Burn injury cases are one of the common medical emergencies admitted to any hospital in India. There are several factors, which play role in the treatment, management, autopsy and investigations of burns death cases. This study is conducted with the aim to study the epidemiology of the burn deaths. All the records of the autopsies which were performed between January 2008 and December 2012 were analyzed with respect to burn death, the age-gender distribution of burn death and manner of death. It was observed that total 7606 cases of unnatural death occurred at PGIMS Rohtak and brought to mortuary of Forensic Medicine Department between January 2008 and December 2012. It was analysed that most common cause of death was road side accident (32.78%) followed by burns (22.13%), poisoning (21.54%), murder (4.67%), railway accident (3.02%), drowning and other asphyxial deaths (2.59%), fall from height (1.42%), electrocution (1.36%), excess of alcohol (1%), snake bite (0.24%) and 9.23% of the deaths were described as miscellaneous deaths.

It was analysed that out of 7606 deaths, 1683 were the burn deaths. Majority of the burn victims were female i.e. 62%. The maximum number of the victims belonged to age group of 21to 30 years i.e. 46%, followed by the age group of 31years to 40 years i.e.23.35%, with the least number of victims from the age group of less than ten years i.e.1.48% followed by the age group of more than fifty years i.e. 2.14% cases. Manner of the burns was accident in majority of cases i.e. 73% followed by suicide i.e. 21% and homicide was found in 6% cases.