Iatrogenic Foreign Body in the Heart in Relation to Possible Malpractice and Its Consequences a Case Report

The paper presents the case of a 55-year-old man whose body was found at home at the foot of the stairs. The inspection of the body at the scene showed that the probable cause of the man’s death was positional asphyxia after falling down the stairs. The forensic autopsy revealed a 10-cm-long tip of a nephrostomy catheter. To determine the time and circumstances of the foreign body’s entry into the heart and its possible impact on the man’s death, the medical history was analyzed. It indicated that the piece of the catheter entered the circulatory system during surgery performed few years before man’s death. The results of the postmortem examination, taking into consideration the obtained medical information, excluded the foreign body in the right ventricle of the heart as a contributory cause of the man’s death. Keywords: Foreign body, Heart, Catheter, Surgery, Positional asphyxia, Malpractice

Striated Abrasions From A Knife With Non-Serrated Blade—Identification Of The Instrument Of Crime On The Basis Of An Experiment With Material Evidence

This paper presents an experiment with a knife seized as material evidence in a homicide case. The reason for the experiment was the necessity to determine whether the injuries of the deceased could have been inflicted with this instrument since in the course of the investigation doubt arose as to the origin of linear, parallel scratches around one of the wounds and on the abdominal integuments suggesting a serrated blade. The knife found near the crime scene had a smooth blade and small serrations only on the borderline between its blade and hilt. However, the performed experiment showed that if the knife is directed towards the integuments of the body in a special way, its serrations, even though not located on the blade itself, may leave such striated marks on the body, as those found during the autopsy, suggesting their origin from a serrated blade.PubMedWo