Description
A Coroner’s pathologist must answer four questions; Who? Where? When? How? Many sudden community deaths reveal external injuries of varying degrees of severity upon admission to the mortuary. The majority of these are innocent and can be readily explained in relation to the patient’s age, health and lifestyle, associated with their site and severity. Less frequently, evisceration reveals bleeding, fractures or old injuries in deaths which were at first assumed to be natural. All injuries must be accurately described, measured and recorded. The Coroner’s officer must enquire into possible causes for the pathologist to consider. Interpretation and ageing of all injuries requires extreme care.
