Incidentally discovered vaginal foreign body: Forensic implication

Abstract

We report the case of a vaginal foreign body accidentally discovered during the examination of a 07-year-old girl victim of a road traffic accident. The unpredicted nature of this discovery has sufficiently raised the medico-legal interest. It was a question for us to determine the circumstances of this intromission by the interrogation of the parents, the study of the mechanism of injury of the accident on the public highway.Physical examination revealed a hymenal tear without other recent vulvar lesions and a closed diaphyseal fracture of the left femur. The treatment consisted firstly of removing the metallic foreign body similar to a spring and secondly of fixing the bone lesion under general anesthesia in the operating room. Short- and medium-term post-operative follow-up was favourable.Faced with the discovery of a vaginal foreign body, a methodical and rigorous analysis is essential.