Also, family members sometimes provide bio-data of the deceased as well as other useful information concerning the circumstances of death. ![]() The coroner’s papers contain information such as the name of the deceased (if known), sex, age, and residential address, place where the body was found and a report of the accident as documented in the extract from the police diary. All deaths due to motorcycle accidents, being coroner’s cases are usually accompanied by a duly signed order from a Coroner, requesting for an autopsy to be performed on the body. In Lagos State, deaths from accidents are reportable, and bodies of victims are deposited in the LASUTH morgue which is the main designated centre for coroner’s autopsies. LASUTH is a leading tertiary institution in Lagos, South-West Nigeria, located in Ikeja central zone of Lagos and provides medical services to inhabitants of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital and contiguous states. This study is a 5-year retrospective descriptive post-mortem study of victims of all the 156 fatal motorcycle accidents seen at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, Lagos, from December 2009 to November 2014. This paper aims to determine the epidemiology of motorcycle accidents and the forensic analysis of the patterns of injuries in fatal motorcycle accidents in Lagos, Nigeria. Injuries to the spine and the pelvis have also been reported in fatally injured victims of motorcycle crashes. Some studies have also reported a high frequency of lower extremity injuries which commonly includes fractures of the long bones as well as soft tissue and vascular injuries. Ĭhest and abdominal injuries are also commonly seen in fatal motorcycle accidents. The most common head injuries are concussions, followed by brain contusions or haemorrhage, facial fractures, and skull fractures. In another autopsy study, Wyatt reported that skull fracture with brain stem laceration accounted for 16.6% of unsurvivable head injuries seen in motorcycle crash victims. reported that among fatally injured motorcycle accident victims, head injury constituted 56%. In a study in California USA, Kraus et al. In an autopsy based study in India, Sharma et al reported the following pattern of head injuries scalp injuries (84.3%), skull fracture (73.1%), subdural haemorrhage (73.8%), subarachnoid haemorrhage (71.6%), cerebral contusion/laceration (58.9%), cerebral oedema (45.5%), epidural haemorrhage (32.8%) and intracerebral haemorrhage (20.9%). Injury to the head is the leading cause of death in fatal motorcycle crashes. ![]() Factors such as helmet wearing, use of alcohol and other drugs, inexperience of riders and poor driver training, conspicuity of the motorcycle and rider, issues of licensure and ownership, riding speed, and risk taking behaviour of riders have been identified as contributory factors to the increased risk of fatal motorcycle crashes. Motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable to injury because there is little or no protection provided in the event of a crash. In Nigeria, the population burden of road traffic accident is estimated to be population, and motorcycle injuries account for over half of road traffic injuries. Mortality due to road traffic injuries in Africa is among the highest in the world it accounts for 28.3 deaths per 100,000 population. ![]() Compared with passengers on other types of vehicles, motorcyclists are 35 times more likely to die in a road traffic accident per distance travelled. The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its Global status report on road safety 2013, states that 1.24 million people die annually on the world’s roads. Road traffic accident ranks among the leading causes of death in the world it is projected to become the second leading cause in 2020 after Ischaemic Heart disease. Increasing use of motorcycles for private and commercial purposes has also been reported in other African countries such as Ghana, Uganda and South Africa. The poor state of the roads in the country and the inefficiency of the public transportation system, as well as worsening vehicular congestion and increasing unemployment, are major reasons for the thriving motorcycle transport industry. The mobility, speed and ease of circumventing road traffic hold ups and its ability to navigate through difficult terrains have made the motorcycle a popular means of transportation in major cities and remote areas in Nigeria. Two-wheeled vehicles are increasing in number across the world especially in developing countries because compared to other vehicles, motorcycles are relatively cheap to own and operate.
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