Skull injury due to atypical firearm: a case report

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Injuries from atypical firearms are highly variable in their morphology and often differ from typical gunshot injuries. This can lead to problems in forensic diagnostics. Knowledge of the atypical weapons design and discovery of atypical projectiles inside a body or at crime scene allows proper injury nature assessment. CASE PRESENTATION: The morphological features of the entrance and exit gunshot wounds of the occipital and frontal bones caused by an atypical projectile ― a concrete nail 4.560 mm are described. The entrance gunshot injury had typical morphological features associated with the specific action of the projectile (a tissue defect, internal beveling of wound). The exit wound was atypical due to the incomplete exit of the concrete nail from the cranial cavity, as well as the anatomical features of the damaged area. CONCLUSION: Atypical firearms and projectiles are diverse and their samples may have many unique designs and technological features knowledge of which may be crucial for forensic examination of gunshot injuries. A comprehensive medico-legal assessment of the injury gunshot nature and the number of shots is traditionally based on the injury morphology and revealing the gunshot residues. However, the presence of projectiles and/or their fragments in the body facilitates the solving of expert tasks. In our case the key to the correct interpretation of the wounds nature was the presence in the skull of an atypical projectile ― a concrete-nail.