[Medico-legal studies on the deaths from coal-mine accidents. 2. Exogenous findings (author's transl)].
Thirty-four deceased who were killed from twenty cases of coal-mine accidents during fourteen years from 1965 to 1978 were autopsied in our laboratory and the following conclusions have been obtained, summarizing the exogenous findings on the bodies. At the explosion of methane gas and coal dust chemical energy stored in coal or methane is converted to mechanical energy and thermal energy which act upon the human bodies. Mechanical energy produces diverse injuries in the human bodies, among which only the coal-particle impression demonstrates directionality. Thermal energy produces burns when it acts directly upon the human bodies and among diverse substances produced by heat from the explosion coal-tar like substance adheres to the skin, soot adheres to the inside of the air passage, carbon monoxide produces carbon-monoxide hemoglobin after entering the blood through the lung. At gas spurt mechanical energy stored in methane which is adsorbed on coal under high pressure is set free to produce injuries on the human bodies, but thermal energy does not develop. The action of diverse sorts of energy upon the body differs extraordinarily according to the distance from an epicenter or the irregularities of pit, producing various exogenous findings on the bodies. Accordingly, general rules cannot be established to assume the sort and mode of an accident and it should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
D000062:Accidents, Occupational; D002056:Burns / Q000473:pathology; D003032:Coal Mining; D005107:Explosions; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D050723:Fractures, Bone / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan