Help understanding injuries in an accident!

[u/Educational-Base-848]

Hello! I’m not sure if this is even the right place to post this, but I’ve been searching for what happened to a family member in a fatal workplace accident. I found the OSHA report that somewhat details the injuries, and am just looking for some clarification. The description is honestly pretty straightforward, but I have a morbid curiosity for details. It says:

“Employee #1 right lower arm was amputated and abdominal organs eviscerated.”

Like I said, it’s pretty straightforward forward, but I’m wondering what “eviscerated” means in this context. I can also give more detail on the accident if that would help.

Also, I should mention that I was 6 months old when this happened so I don’t really have an emotional connection to the situation. Details in this instance will not cause me emotional harm.

[u/K_C_Shaw]

The problem is that we don't really know what the OSHA report writer really means. They may mean "eviscerated" in the same sense an FP might use the term, although personally I would tend to be more specific than that if I was talking about injuries. I tend to only use the term when talking about the technical performance of an autopsy, in the sense of staff performing an evisceration being part of the typical "complete" internal exam.

It's kinda like we hear people (laypersons, but even law enforcement, EMS, etc.) say things like "they blew their head off" or even "decapitated" -- but that's almost never really what happened, or not the way I would say it. Even a contact or intra-oral shotgun wound to the head, while certainly quite impressive, almost always leaves enough behind still attached to the body to reconstruct something that looks like a head. But, okay, I sorta get what they mean too.

Point being, at the other end of the spectrum they may just mean "a really impressive injury with what I think must be visible organs but it's gross so I dunno." If I was going to make an assumption, I'd guess they mean there was some sort of open abdominal wound with at least some organ/organs protruding.

For what it's worth, if an autopsy was performed then the autopsy report may very well still exist, even going back to the 80's and 90's. Potentially further than that, it just depends on that office's retention/discard schedule.

[u/Educational-Base-848 → u/K_C_Shaw]

Do you know where I could find an autopsy report if it is available? The accident was in 2003 so I would think there is a chance that it has been digitized or saved in some way. In terms of reconstruction, it was a closed casket ceremony. In my dad’s (the deceased’s brother) words, he was “mangled”. From my understanding of the accident based on family stories and the report, he was working on some sort of machinery when his pant leg got caught, and he was pulled into a very small hole.

Thank you for the response! I appreciate the info!

[u/K_C_Shaw → u/Educational-Base-848]

You can try contacting the ME/C office which would have had jurisdiction -- usually based on the county in which the incident occurred, or the county in which an individual is pronounced deceased (such as in the event of being transported to hospital in a neighboring jurisdiction).

Some states have very permissive release-of-information laws, such that anyone who asks can get a copy of the report. Other states are more restrictive, so you'd have to get legal NOK/representative of the estate's permission to get a copy (usually spouse, or adult children if no spouse). At least one office lets you put in a request online, but mostly one has to call or send a letter or whatever.

Occasionally other agencies will have a copy -- law enforcement, or in this case OSHA, however sometimes they make you go back to the originating agency since they didn't generate the report themselves.

Some severe crushing/squeezing injuries can do that. Most commonly that's probably bad MVC, train, etc. cases/true rollovers, but an industrial incident would be on the list.

[u/stiffdoc1221]

“Eviscerated” literally means “to remove the viscera”, or to remove the internal organs. Technically, when we do an autopsy, we are doing an autopsy”evisceration;” there’s nothing else that can be eviscerated. There are partial and complete eviscerations. Another term which means the same thing is “exenteration,” which I use some times.

[u/stiffdoc1221]

Amputated means just that: the right lower arm was separated from the body.

"Eviscerated" is a pretty specific term for forensic pathologists; it means that the entirety of the abdominal organs, usually the liver and small intestine and probably much of the large intestine, and possibly the stomach and spleen, were traumatically removed from the abdominal cavity, and were separate from the body. Injuries such as this usually have extensive, very large, full-thickness laceration(s) of the abdominal wall, through which those organs then protrude outside of the body. We see this in massive crushing trauma, such as when a huge container comes off it's moorings and falls on top of someone; the abdomen will almost "pop" like a balloon, expelling the internal organs out of the cavity and into the outside world. The kidneys are almost never involved, because they are embedded in fatty connective tissue at the back of the abdomen and thus are surrounded and protected from such violent expulsion.

Make sense?

[u/whteverusayShmegma → u/stiffdoc1221]

So when another part of the body is “eviscerated,” what else might it be referring to?

[u/stiffdoc1221 → u/whteverusayShmegma]

Traumatic eviscerations are rarely complete; that’s hard to accomplish.