Journal
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FORENSIC MEDICINE AND PATHOLOGY
Volume 43, Issue 2, Pages 157-165Publisher
LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
DOI: 10.1097/PAF.0000000000000733
Keywords
agricultural accidents; agricultural fatalities; mixer wagons; augers; dismemberment
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This review focuses on the diagnostic evaluations required to determine if a death involving a feed mixer was accidental, murder, or suicide. Detailed analysis of the death scene, mechanical characteristics of the machinery, and thorough postmortem and toxicological examinations are essential.
Feed mixer or total mixed ration mixer wagons are powerful agricultural machines used to shred and mix silage with other ingredients and deliver it direct to the feeding troughs on livestock farms. Fatalities involving these feed mixers may occur when operators become trapped in the augers or, less frequently, are crushed by moving wagons. Death can occur very rapidly because of dismemberment, multiple lesions, or crushing. The aim of this review is to focus on the diagnostic evaluations that need to be performed to confirm that the death was accidental and to exclude a hypothesis of murder or suicide. Forensic investigations in such cases must involve the detailed analysis of the death scene and the mechanical characteristics of the machinery with an accurate postmortem and toxicological examination.
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