| Summary: | Hanging is a form of ligature strangulation in which the force applied to the
neck is derived from the gravitational drag of one’s own body weight. A
furrow - dessication is the most common form of ligature mark on the skin.
The furrow is a postmortem phenomenon due to ligature pressure and it is more
detectable as the suspension time becomes longer. Vital reaction is a
phenomenon that shows if the injury was premortal. Vital signs could be
present at the injury site, thus it is termed as local, but they could also
be remote from the injury site, and then they are termed general vital signs.
The presence and recognition of any vital reaction in each pathoforensic case
indicate vitality of certain injury, which is sometimes exceptionally useful
in solving the case under investigation. Although in cases of hanging there
is usually no question about the vitality of injury, this does not mean that
one should not recognize the type of vital reactions and location of
occurrence of these phenomena in such cases. Most often they can be also
useful in the reconstruction of the mechanism. This paper presents most
common vital reactions in hanging, with explanation of their underlying
mechanisms, and their significance in forensic pathology is pointed out.
[Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 45005]
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