Air bag-mediated fatal craniocervical trauma: a case report.

This case report describes a four-year-old girl (102 cm, 17 kg) who sustained fatal craniocerebral injuries as a result of an inflating automobile air bag. The car struck the lid of the sewer system, which was 15 cm above the ground level, at a low speed, and both the driver and passenger air bags inflated. Despite the fact that air bag usage has lessened both the possibility and severity of occupant injuries in frontal collisions, case reports of serious injuries and even deaths especially in children due to air bag deployment, particularly during low speed impacts, highlight the need for changes in both system design and possibly the threshold speed of air bag deployment.

Fatalities caused by spherical bullets fired from blank cartridge guns in Istanbul, Turkey.

Blank cartridge guns are generally regarded as being harmless and are not considered to be firearms in the legal sense in most countries. To show the danger of these guns upon simple modifications, we report 59 fatalities resulting from these simply modified blank cartridge guns in Istanbul, Turkey. The great majority of the victims were males and the age of those ranged from 11 to 61 years.

[References to avoid complications in releases of the trigger thumb: a cadaveric study].

Objectives: The aim of this cadaveric study was to demonstrate the utility of some visible landmarks in the hand in avoiding probable complications during percutaneous or open releases performed for the trigger thumb associated with flexor tendon tenosynovitis.

Methods: In this cadaveric study, we dissected 20 thumbs of 10 fresh cadavers (10 males; mean age 46 years; range 31 to 62 years) from the interphalangeal to the metacarpophalangeal creases to expose all digital arteries, nerves, the flexor tendon, and the A1 pulley. The following distances were measured: from the proximal edge of the A1 pulley to the digital arteries and nerves, and to the interphalangeal and metacarpophalangeal creases of the thumb.

Estimation of stature and determination of sex from radial and ulnar bone lengths in a Turkish corpse sample.

Determination of sex and estimation of stature are important aspects of forensic identification of an unknown individual. In the absence of pelvis the sex is assessed from long bones and cranium as they both provide high accuracy in sexing. The present study is an attempt to assess sex and stature from long bones of the forearm using recently deceased forensic cases in Istanbul, Turkey.

Fatalities due to methyl alcohol intoxication in Turkey: an 8-year study.

The aim of this study is to examine methyl alcohol poisoning cases from the medico-legal point of view. The records of the Morgue Department of Council of the Forensic Medicine were reviewed retrospectively for all methyl alcohol poisonings for the period of 27.10.