Fatal left ventricular rupture and pericardial tamponade following a horse kick to the chest.
Horse kicks are rare incidents-especially, if they end in fatality. In this case, a 13-year-old girl collapsed 3 minutes after sustaining a kick to the chest from a pony. Resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful. Postmortem computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging were performed before autopsy.Imaging revealed a 3-cm long laceration of the left ventricle and a large pericardial effusion. Using segmentation techniques, the amount of blood inside the pericardium was determined. These findings correlated well with the autopsy findings. Pericardial tamponade was determined at autopsy to be the cause of death.Postmortem imaging may prove useful for the diagnosis of these types of injury, but further studies are needed to document accuracy.
Ebert
Lars C
LC
Center of Forensic Imaging and Virtopsy, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. lars.ebert@virtopsy.com
Schön
Corinna A
CA
Ruder
Thomas D
TD
Thali
Michael J
MJ
Hatch
Gary M
GM
D000293:Adolescent; D000818:Animals; D002305:Cardiac Tamponade / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D049429:Forensic Pathology; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000293:injuries* / Q000473:pathology*; D006736:Horses; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D012421:Rupture / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014949:Wounds, Nonpenetrating / Q000150:complications*