As a criminal trial attorney for 40 years I won several cases both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney by running my theory of the case through the Medical Examiner. I spent hours in the law library with the medico-legal dictionary side-by-side with the autopsy protocol to understand every word they wrote. I met with them to reconstruct the homicide through the autopsy. I studied the autopsy protocol thoroughly, catching them in mistakes a couple of times. I would give the M.E.'s hypotheticals: "If GSW A is the first and it goes into the body at this angle, and the victim moves in response in this way and sustains GSW B in this part of the body, entry here, bullet path here, exit wound here, and then the victim falls and the killer finishes him off with GSW C to the back of the head at this angle--A supported wound, didn't you find?" "Yes"-- "Is this scenario consistent with your scene examination and the findings at autopsy?" Stuff like that.
All that work with M.E.'s over the years paid off in a new, unexpected way yesterday.
D-2 and I were doing questions, the previous two questions prior to the instant question included an autopsy, it was non-criminal, but the guy died.
We're studying cardio.
On this question the fact pattern had a group of friends walking down a street when suddenly a guy jumped out of the bushes and stabbed the 17-year old victim once in the chest. "A penetrating [not perforating,
that means the knife goes in and comes out the opposite side of the body] laterally directed stab wound..." The question asked us what organ was injured. I noticed that the word "autopsy" was not used. So the kid survived. That strongly suggested to me that the wound was not "medial" or straight in since then it would have hit the heart or one of the major vessels. Rather the knife had gone in at an angle, "laterally". Ana got lateral but elided over the key "laterally directed". "Of course it went into his left side but they're talking about the dieection it went in also." I had to repeat the distinction a couple of times and even stood up and demonstrated with a pencil on my own body. "They're saying the knife was laterally directed when it entered his body so I bet the answer is the lung since that would result in a collapsed lung and not be fatal. If it went straight in we'd have another autopsy. We don't." We got the answer right, the lung it was, but an equal percentage of Ana's colleagues got the answer wrong, choosing a more vital structure because they misunderstood "laterally directed".
UWorld's explanation could have been provided by my Medical Examiner colleagues. They also suggest that the location of the stab wound, and the lateral directionality of the wound track is "consistent" with a "left-handed assaulter." Great success.
