13193              HOMICIDAL TRAUMA OF THE LARYNX

The patient was a man aged 48 said to have been involved in a fight at midnight one Saturday.  The body was found lying in the open clad only in trousers and socks.  Postmortem showed severe facial injuries, with multiple fractures of the mandible, maxilla, zygoma and nasal bones, with much blood in the air passages and slight subarachnoid haemorrhage.  There were also the laryngeal injuries shown in this specimen.

The hyoid bone has been fractured in two places: on the right side through the greater cornu and on the left through the body of the hyoid bone.  The epiglottis has been torn from its attachment on the left side and a laceration extends across the larynx above the vocal cords.  The laryngeal cartilage has been fractured in the midline anteriorly and posteriorly.  There is bruising associated with this fracture.  The trachea shows only a little mucosal congestion in its upper two thirds.