FORENSIC ACCIDENT RECONSTRUCTION

Forensic Accident Reconstruction



Forensic Accident Reconstruction

Introduction

Lethal diving accidents of scuba divers are rare in the daily routine of forensic doctors. Approximately 2-3 divers undergo post-mortem examination in Munich per year. Although other forensic departments with seaside proximity examine more diving accidents, they also only encounter a few cases annually. In 1993, Van Laak (National Director of the Divers Alert Network [DAN] of Europe) evaluated around 60 cases of diving-related deaths in Germany (DAN, 2006, 14).

The annual publications of the Divers Alert Network and the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) feature statistics on diving accidents. Analysis of this data shows that an average of one per 2500 dives results in a decompression accident (DCI). One of approximately 40,000 dives results in the death of the diver; therefore one of 7500 divers. In 2006, 88 divers died in the USA and Canada; in Germany, exact numbers are unknown. Diving conditions in the USA and GB may represent confounding factors in the data, so they cannot be assumed to apply to Germany, although they may provide insight into problematic aspects of diving.

In 2006, BSAC reported that diving accidents increase during the summer. In most cases (112 of 379), DCI was the main cause of the accident; other causes were problematic ascents and accidents that happened during surfacing. In 2003, Nakayama et al. published data from 3078 Japanese hobby divers and reported that 711 (23.1%) suffered an accident. The main complaints reported were barotraumas of the ears and sinuses (16.3%) and rapture of the deep (12.1%). Only 1.9% of them had a DCI. Between 1 in 2500 and 1 in 20,000 dives results in DCI.

Remarkably frequently, women with little diving experience and men with long-time diving experience sustain accidents. Typically the diving depth where incidents happen is between 21 and 30 m. More than half of the divers who later had an accident were known to have had health problems such as diabetes mellitus or asthma. Three quarters of them were overweight (Cumming, 2006, 12).

Forensic Reconstruction

Typical drowning signs are foam in the airways and lungs, missing retraction competence of lung tissue, distended lungs, dilute gastric content, fissures in the gastric mucous membranes, and (peri)pleural hemorrhage. The accidental component clearly seemed to be the triggering cause for drowning (Nakayama, 2004, 51). In 1994, Birkholz stated that the diagnosis of “drowning” on a death certificate in the case of a diving accident has a similar value as “cardiac arrest”. If a diver dies, it will usually be by drowning, because of the fact that he or she is diving. But first, the event of drowning may be the consequence of an event under water. What happened under water? What is the reason for the loss of consciousness? Why does a healthy person suddenly die?

First of all, the forensic post-mortem examination aims to exclude application of force and competing reasons for the diver's death, e.g. a heart attack that leads to drowning. The trigger event that leads to a diver's accident cannot be determined by autopsy ...