Injuries and vital reactions patterns in hanging

Hanging is a form of ligature strangulation in which the force applied to the neck is derived from the gravitational drag of one’s own body weight. A furrow - dessication is the most common form of ligature mark on the skin. The furrow is a postmortem phenomenon due to ligature pressure and it is more detectable as the suspension time becomes longer. Vital reaction is a phenomenon that shows if the injury was premortal. Vital signs could be present at the injury site, thus it is termed as local, but they could also be remote from the injury site, and then they are termed general vital signs. The presence and recognition of any vital reaction in each pathoforensic case indicate vitality of certain injury, which is sometimes exceptionally useful in solving the case under investigation. Although in cases of hanging there is usually no question about the vitality of injury, this does not mean that one should not recognize the type of vital reactions and location of occurrence of these phenomena in such cases. Most often they can be also useful in the reconstruction of the mechanism. This paper presents most common vital reactions in hanging, with explanation of their underlying mechanisms, and their significance in forensic pathology is pointed out. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 45005]