Run-off-road collision with 4 dead and 2 injured victims

The paper present a multiple non-passengers/non-pedestrians car accident with 4 dead and 2 injured victims happened in June 2009 in Transilvania (Romania). In front of a fenced-in courtyard, some persons were sitting on a bench beside an urban road and suddenly were run over by a car. At the end of the crash the car remained in the footpath with a wracked wheel and moderate damages in the left front part; the driver was uninjured. The four autopsies revealed in the male 63y.o.: relevant fracture of vault and skull basis with meningeal hemorrhage and frontal lobe contusions, thoracic and pelvic ring injuries (blood alcohol: 0.155g/L); in the female 46y.o.: thoracic aorta laceration and multiple, bilteral lower limb fractures (blood alcohol: 0.2g/L); in male child 4y.o.: blunt trauma of face and skull with a complex comminute fracture in the left temporal region irradiated to the cranial base; thoracic vertebral fractures (T2-T3) and an abdominal trauma with liver, spleen and right kidney ruptures; female child 3y.o.: complex vault and cranial basis fracture, brain mengeal hemorrhages; multiple, bilateral rib fractures and left clavicle fracture. In this run-off-road collision relevant contributory factors were the loss of control and mis-judging a curve while driving at high speed and the lethal injuries were the result of a combination of a direct high velocity impact and projection of the bodies on the ground. Important to prevent such dramatic fatal road accidents is the improvement of road safety, creating a clear zone, or separating with guard rails the footpath and the road in residential areas.