[Mortui vivos docent : The dead teach the living]

Area of Science:

• Forensic Medicine
• Emergency Medicine
• Trauma Care

Background:

• Forensic and emergency medicine have significant overlaps, especially concerning traumatized patients undergoing forensic autopsy.
• Frustraneously resuscitated patients represent a key intersection point between these specialties.
• The pre-hospital phase of trauma care is a critical, yet often under-documented, aspect of mortality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To highlight the intersections between forensic and emergency medicine.
• To emphasize the value of registering pre-hospital trauma deaths for medical evaluation.
• To underscore the potential for improved emergency medical training and retrospective analysis.

Main Methods:

• Review of cases involving traumatized patients requiring forensic autopsy.
• Analysis of the pre-hospital phase in trauma mortality.
• Discussion of the utility of clinical registers for pre-clinical deaths.

Main Results:

• Cooperation between emergency and forensic medicine offers training and evaluation benefits.
• Registration of autopsied pre-hospital trauma deaths provides valuable data.
• Pre-clinical deaths are largely unrecorded in current clinical registers.

Conclusions:

• Enhanced collaboration and data registration in pre-hospital trauma care are crucial.
• Systematic registration of pre-hospital trauma deaths can improve understanding and outcomes.
• Integrating pre-hospital data into clinical registers is essential for comprehensive trauma mortality analysis.