A 45-year-old male car driver died in a traffic accident of four cars rear-end collision on the highway. He was found to have died after a respiratory and cardiac arrest at the scene. No sign of skin injuries was observed from the external inspection. The autopsy was not permitted by the family members because of the local culture. Multislice computed tomography (MSCT) was applied to the current case, showing dislocation of C3-4 cervical vertebrae with II degree, C4 vertebral plate fractures, and spinal stenosis. Post-mortem MSCT confirmed the diagnosis as whiplash injuries. MSCT was verified to be effective in showing the severity of whiplash injuries, thus providing certain objective evidence for medicolegal expertise.
Accidents, Traffic ; Autopsy ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Multidetector Computed Tomography ; Spinal Fractures ; Whiplash Injuries/diagnostic imaging*

This study was conducted to develop a three-dimension finite element (FE) model of Chinese human neck for dynamic response during impact condition. A 50th percentile adult human in good health was chosen as a model. The 3-D FE model of C1-T1 was constructed by using of SCT scanning technology to get the data of DICOM format, using software Materialisc mimics, Pro-E to achieve three-dimension reconstruction, and using software TrueGrid to mesh. The model was composed of cervical vertebra, discs, facet joints, ligaments and muscles, which consisted of 24916 nodes and 15023 elements, including 14626 eight-node solid elements, 19 two-node link elements and 378 two-node cable elements. In LS-DYNA, the dynamic response of human neck under frontal impact was investigated and compared with experimental results so as to validate the model. The method proposed can develop complex FE model with eight-node elements fleetly and accurately in order to make computing more stably. The developed three-dimension FE model was used for dynamic response during impact condition, which may be helpful to studies on the injury of Chinese human neck.
Accidents, Traffic ; Adult ; Biomechanical Phenomena ; Cervical Vertebrae ; diagnostic imaging ; injuries ; physiology ; Finite Element Analysis ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; methods ; Male ; Models, Biological ; Neck ; physiology ; Stress, Mechanical ; Tomography, Spiral Computed ; Whiplash Injuries ; etiology ; physiopathology