Souvenir bullet in the brain of a convict- a case report

Author: 
Sandeep Kumar Giri., Vinod Kumar., Gaurav Sharma., Pankaj Keshwani., Vijay Pal and S. K. Dhattarwal

Firearm weapons, on account of their fatalities, are more commonly used in these days during assault. Forensic Pathologists receive cases of firearm injuries very frequently as in most of the cases, death of the victim occur instantaneously especially when the injury(ies) involved the vital parts/organs of the body. However, in some cases, it may not lead to death and the survivor carries the bullet embedded in some body part for long periods of time without having any clinical symptoms, disability or discomfort. In the present case the author received dead body of a 32 years male prisoner alleged to have died to status epilepticus. Being a body of prisoner, autopsy was requested by the police. There were no apparent external and internal injury over the body. On autopsy, a souvenir bullet was found in the most vital part of the body i.e. brain. In some cases, in which no previous investigation is available and the person died due to different clinical symptoms which are not present previously then the presence of foreign body should be kept in mind because foreign bodies embedded in tissues do not necessarily result in clinical presentation. The interesting findings of this case would be discussed in detail in this paper.

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DOI: 
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24327/ijcar.2017.6028.0857
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