Abstract

VARGAS SANABRIA, Maikel  and  SOLANO CALDERON, Leslie. Accidentes de tránsito fatales en Costa Rica en el 2007. Med. leg. Costa Rica [online]. 2008, vol.25, n.2, pp.07-24. ISSN 2215-5287.

Traffic accidents in Costa Rica have been a contributing cause of death (the third cause of death) over the last years; that ’s why its is a mayor issue to know the panorama of the latest fatalities caused by this events. In this article, it will be analyzed from the legal medicine point of view, the fatal transit accidents during the year 2007. For these reason all autopsies (a total of 3003) occurred during that year which were made by the Departamento de Medicina Legal de Costa Rica were reviewed. From these revision, it was obtained that one forth of these autopsies were transit accidents, which means that the mortality rate was 16,58 per 100000 habitants, that is consider high over the world. The most common profile of the victims was: male, productive age, fatal accidents occurred predominantly during nights, weekends, in coast provinces, with death by cranial cervical trauma at the scene in pedestrian and drivers (including company), a significant percentage were under alcohol effects and very few were under the effects of other abuse dugs. It is insist the prevention as a fundamental tool to avoid them.

Keywords : Traffic accidents; the mortality rate; prevention; forensic pathology; traffic accidents with fatal consequences; victim profile; autopsies.

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