Mechanism of Injury

Explaining the "How" in Your Injury

Severe injuries are a common theme in automobile, work place, and medical negligence lawsuits. Oftentimes, comprehensive legal animations and illustrations are needed to explain the seriousness of these injuries. In such cases, we must also explain how the injury occurred. That’s when our role is the most interesting, when we can go deeper into the issues and discuss the mechanism of the trauma involved.

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This animation is one example of how we can accomplish this. In this case there was a severe forearm injury caused by a shattered industrial grinding wheel that sent fragments flying through the skin, bone, and soft tissues of this patient. Our task was to show, not only the injury that was caused, but also the pathway of the fragments as they penetrated the arm.

Of course, to start this process we always recommend a summary of the base anatomy involved in the case.It’s like providing a cast of characters for your story. The anatomy overview helps to establish the names and locations of the important structures and clearly shows the relationships these structures have to each other. This 3d rotation further clarifies these relationships and this animation of blood flow shows the crucial importance of the arteries in the forearm that provide a supply of blood down into the wrist and hand.

Now that we’ve shown the proper anatomy, we can reveal the injuries in this case. These include a disruption of the skin, bone, arteries and nerves and involves both an exit wound and an entry wound. But how did the shattered fragments get from the medial side of the arm to the lateral side? Cross sectional views allow us to explain. These sectional views allow us to include arrows representing the trajectory of the fragments through the bone and soft tissues. Once viewed from these perspectives the massive damage can be more clearly understood.

Cross Sectional View of Injuries

By animating the mechanism of the injury, we can better explain the massive trauma involved in this case.

If you need an illustration or  courtroom animation for your case feel free to browse our demonstrative exhibit library of stock exhibits and/or contact us to assist in the creation of a custom exhibit.