Fatal compressed air jet injury to the chest: A case report

Abstract

Compressed air is used to power various tools and machinery. It is a concentrated jet of air with high pressure that can cause various fatal and non-fatal injuries. However, people don't understand the lurking danger and use it improperly and negligibly. Tunnel boring machine (TBM) uses compressed air to balance earth pressure and to push off the precast concrete tunnel lining segment. Compressed air is stored in the thrust cylinders, capable of producing a pressure of about 100 psi. This is a case of a person, who was working on a TBM, as a mechanic. On the day of the incident, he was detaching the pipeline from the nozzle of the thrust cylinder. Somehow, he came in front of the air jet from the cylinder accidentally and injured himself in the chest and died at once. At postmortem examination, a lacerated wound has been present over the right side of the chest. Underlying rib was fractured. The right lung was lacerated through middle and lower lobes. Adjacent diaphragm and liver were lacerated too. The deceased died due to multiple visceral injuries. The injury pattern was just like the blast effect of a gunshot wound with blank cartilage, without any gunshot residue effect