Injury Causation
Purpose/Aim
The purpose of the Injury Causation section is to determine the injury causation part and external injury mechanism that might have caused the injuries sustained by occupants and pedestrians involved in a crash. This includes:
- To collect data about physical evidence originated by occupants and pedestrians impacts (e.g. impact marks, deformation, residual blood). Also refer to the vehicle inspection section.
- To collect data about injuries and determine the internal injury mechanism (e.g. acceleration, compression, torsion). Also refer to the injury coding section.
- To analyse and link the information about physical evidence and injuries.
Methods
The determination of injury causation essentially builds around the information collected during the stages of vehicle inspection and injury coding. It is therefore important for teams to act according to a global view. Some points that might be important during the inspection of vehicles for determining injury causation are the following:
- In crashes involving vulnerable road users, marks and deformations on the exterior of vehicles (e.g. pedestrian impact marks on the hood).
- Evidence for determining the trajectory of occupants during ejection.
- Evidence of intrusion.
- Evidence about the deployment of restraint systems.
- Marks and deformations on interior parts, such as dash panel, seats.
Finding the key information can sometimes be difficult and require a considerable degree of expertise (for example, evidence behind seat covers). All of the relevant data should be recorded and collected according to the protocols defined in the vehicle inspection section (photographs, markings, measurements). Refer to the corresponding section.
The final result of the analysis should be the connection of the injuries identified during the phase of injury coding and analysis with the corresponding causation parts.
Equipment
Please refer to the Medical Data section of the main Equipment List for the Injury Causation equipment list.
Arrangements
Please refer to the Medical Data section Arrangements for the Injury Causation arrangements.