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Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey

OBJECTIVES: To investigate various cases of death caused by electrical injuries among Turkish military personnel. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed fatality cases of military personnel between 1994 and 2013 at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Gulhane Military Medical Academy, School of Medici...

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Autores principales: Tugcu, Harun, Ozsoy, Sait, Balandiz, Huseyin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Saudi Medical Journal 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4362200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25630009
http://dx.doi.org/10.15537/smj.2015.1.9486
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author Tugcu, Harun
Ozsoy, Sait
Balandiz, Huseyin
author_facet Tugcu, Harun
Ozsoy, Sait
Balandiz, Huseyin
author_sort Tugcu, Harun
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: To investigate various cases of death caused by electrical injuries among Turkish military personnel. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed fatality cases of military personnel between 1994 and 2013 at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Gulhane Military Medical Academy, School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey, the only forensic medicine center for the Turkish Armed Forces. Medical records and autopsy reports of cases of electrical fatalities were reviewed and analyzed in terms of age and gender-specific incidence, voltage, contact details, body region distribution, location, and season of incident, site, and severity of injuries sustained, and histopathological and toxicological findings. RESULTS: Sixteen (3.5%) out of the 450 autopsy cases involved electrocution. All deaths were accidental and most frequently occurred outdoors (75%). Eight (50%) died due to high voltage while 6 (37.5%) died due to low voltage. The entry and exit lesions were determined most frequently in cases with high voltage injury. The low voltage deaths commonly occurred at the scene of the event (66.6%), while almost all high voltage deaths occurred in the hospital (87.5%, p=0.03). Electrical burns were most commonly detected in the upper extremities (32.6%, n=14). CONCLUSION: The present study shows that deaths due to high voltage electrocution are more frequent than low voltage electrocution among military personnel.
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spelling pubmed-43622002015-03-19 Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey Tugcu, Harun Ozsoy, Sait Balandiz, Huseyin Saudi Med J Original Article OBJECTIVES: To investigate various cases of death caused by electrical injuries among Turkish military personnel. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed fatality cases of military personnel between 1994 and 2013 at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Gulhane Military Medical Academy, School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey, the only forensic medicine center for the Turkish Armed Forces. Medical records and autopsy reports of cases of electrical fatalities were reviewed and analyzed in terms of age and gender-specific incidence, voltage, contact details, body region distribution, location, and season of incident, site, and severity of injuries sustained, and histopathological and toxicological findings. RESULTS: Sixteen (3.5%) out of the 450 autopsy cases involved electrocution. All deaths were accidental and most frequently occurred outdoors (75%). Eight (50%) died due to high voltage while 6 (37.5%) died due to low voltage. The entry and exit lesions were determined most frequently in cases with high voltage injury. The low voltage deaths commonly occurred at the scene of the event (66.6%), while almost all high voltage deaths occurred in the hospital (87.5%, p=0.03). Electrical burns were most commonly detected in the upper extremities (32.6%, n=14). CONCLUSION: The present study shows that deaths due to high voltage electrocution are more frequent than low voltage electrocution among military personnel. Saudi Medical Journal 2015 /pmc/articles/PMC4362200/ /pubmed/25630009 http://dx.doi.org/10.15537/smj.2015.1.9486 Text en Copyright: © Saudi Medical Journal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Tugcu, Harun
Ozsoy, Sait
Balandiz, Huseyin
Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey
title Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey
title_full Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey
title_fullStr Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey
title_full_unstemmed Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey
title_short Electrocution fatalities in military personnel in Ankara, Turkey
title_sort electrocution fatalities in military personnel in ankara, turkey
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4362200/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25630009
http://dx.doi.org/10.15537/smj.2015.1.9486
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