Abstract

Background: Accident in rail track is one of the important segment in death investigation. Among the rail track accidents, death due to decapitation is one of the complex segment. Decapitation or beheading is an imminently fatal entity. There are possibilities that decapitation in rail track might be either accidental or homicidal or suicidal. Materials and Methods: The present cross sectional retrospective study of death due to railway decapitation cases had been carried out in the Dept. of Forensic Medicine at Late Shri Lakhiram Agrawal Memorial Govt. Medical College, Raigarh, Chhattisgarh. In this study autopsy records of all railway track decapitation death cases, which were autopsied at K.G.H. mortuary, Raigarh during the period of 04 years (2015–2019) were included for research purpose. Results and Observations: In our study decapitation injuries were 1.07% of total autopsy and 18.18% of total train accident cases. Males were predominant over females. Victims of age group 21–50 were maximum in number i.e 70.83%. Accidental decapitation was found in most of the cases i.e. 66.67%. Conclusion: Decapitation in railway track fatalities are not uncommon. Decapitation injuries are mostly accidental in nature, but suicidal and homicidal death cases have also been reported, so the pattern of injuries in railway decapitation injuries should be assessed cautiously by autopsy surgeons and final opinion should be formed only after considering all circumstantial evidences

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