[On the death of Gabriel Cano de Aponte]

Gabriel Cano de Aponte was Governor of Chile since 1717 and until his death in 1733, being 68 years old. As a soldier, he was an experienced horse rider. The sequence of events that caused his death three months after an equestrian accident is unclear. A systematic clinical analysis of the latter is the main objective of this review. Historians have documented Cano de Aponte's "inclination for unbridled fun and equestrian exercises". During a holiday Cano de Aponte suffered a horse fall and subsequent crushing by the latter. It has been stated that a spinal lesion caused by the accident kept him bedridden for a period of three months, clear in reason and with intense pain, before his death. However, there is no evidence on historic data that conveys any typical sign associated with spinal injury following the accident. Therefore we suggest that Cano de Aponte suffered a complex pelvic ring fracture. The fact that he was prostrated, lucid, but suffered an intense pain best sustains the hypothesis of a pelvic fracture. After the initial period, one of the most common causes of death resulting from a pelvic fracture is deep venous thrombosis with secondary pulmonary thromboembolism. This must have been the sequence of events that most probably caused Cano de Aponte's death.