Cause of death

Name: Date: Asphyxia 1. Fill in the following flow chart:

2. Define asphyxia

3 a) Give some examples of natural causes of death that involve asphyxia. b) What are the three most common criminal causes of death involving asphyxia?

4. What characteristics do all cases of strangulation have? 5. How can victims of drowning generally be identified? (aside from being in water, which doesnt necessarily mean they drowned!) 6. How is a wet drowning different to a dry drowning? 7. What is petechial haemorrhage and what does it indicate? Wounds 8. List the various categories of wounds. 9. How is shock from a wound more likely to cause death than bleeding? What sort of wound is most likely to result in bleeding to death? 10. In the case of bullet wounds what is the difference between the appearance of an entry and an exit wound? What causes this? 11. What information about a gunshot wound could an examination of powder burns supply?

12. How do slash, incision and puncture knife wounds differ in appearance? 13. How can you tell if a knife wound is pre- or post- mortem?

14. Why do you think drivers of cars involved in accidents have a circular mark on the chests, while their passengers tend to have knee and spinal injuries? 15. In the case of pedestrian bumper injuries, why would it be true to say that, generally, the lower these occur on the leg, the more likely that the driver of the vehicle tried to brake or slow down?