Unique Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences Vol. 1(4), pp. 044-048, October, 2013
Available online@http://www.uniqueresearchjournals.org/URJMMS
©2013 Unique Research Journals
Unique Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences
Full Length Research Paper
Incidence of deaths due to lethal sharp weapon injuries
Waseem H. K. Butt and Khushboo H.
Sharif Medical and Dental College, Jai Umra, Lahore, Punjab. Pakistan.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: 923004045738.
Accepted 31 July, 2013
Sharp weapons are one of the most violent means of death. This was a retrospective study and involves
the deaths by sharp weapons autopsied in Lahore during January 2011 to December 2012. This study
reports that frequency of sharp weapon deaths in Lahore is showing similar trend to some other
studies conducted in different regions of Pakistan. The study revealed that out of 1653 medico legal
deaths in Lahore during the study period, 70 deaths were due to sharp weapons including 51 (72.8%)
males and 19 (27.2%) females. 100% deaths were homicides. Deaths were more frequent in age group
ranging from 20-39 years (55.7%). Study showed that most of deaths were due to stab wounds (57.14%)
while (42.86%) were due to incisions involving neck.
Key words: Sharp weapon, autopsy, stab, homicide, death.
INTRODUCTION
Violence has been an integral part of the human
civilization since its inception. Human beings have
progressively become expert in manufacturing various
types of weapons both for offensive and defensive
purposes. Sharp weapons are one of the most violent
and abhorrent means of death. Sharp force injuries along
with other primitive type injury type such as blunt force
trauma have been around for a long time. It has always
been a condemnable method of fatalities indicative of
extreme hatred for the dead and at many times, the
mental instability of the murderers (Wilcox, 1985).
Sharp weapons can be classified into light cutting,
moderately heavy sharp cutting and heavy splitting sharp
weapons (Vijay, 2006). The usual weapons for cutting
and stabbing are knives, daggers, ice picks, hatchets and
choppers.
In Pakistan, very limited work has been done on sharp
weapons injuries. A three year study from Hyderabad
reported 10% of unnatural deaths to be due to sharp
weapons (Yousfani and Memon, 2010). A study from
Abbottabad revealed sharp weapon responsible for 5%
homicidal deaths (Hassan et al., 2005). Few studies have
reported sharp weapons to be the second most important
means of homicidal deaths (Marri et al., 2006; Bashir et
al., 2004). The main objective of conducting the present
study was to collect data on pattern of lethal sharp
injuries.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This was a retrospective study extending over a period of
two years from January 2011 to December 2012 that
involved all reported sharp weapon deaths autopsied at
the department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology,
King Edward Medical University Lahore. The cases
included were those where the death occurred due to
infliction of injuries by sharp weapons. The occurrence of
deaths in Lahore other than sharp weapons was
excluded. Statistical data was analyzed using SPSS-16.
The frequency and percentages were calculated for
categorical variables.
RESULTS
The total number of deaths reported during the study
period was 1653, out of which 70 were due to sharp
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045
Table 1. Sex wise distribution of cases.
Year
2011
2012
Total
Male
28
23
51 (72.8%)
Female
6
13
19 (27.2%)
Total (%)
34 (48.6)
36 (51.4)
70 (100)
Figure 1. Graphic representation of gender wise distribution.
Table 2. Frequency of age group involved.
Age Group
19 years & less
20-39 Years
40-59 Years
60 Years & more
Total
Number
11
39
14
6
70
weapons giving incidence rate of 4.2%. Out of total 1653,
45.9% that is 760 were found to be homicidal in nature,
so the sharp weapon deaths were forming 9.2% of the
760 homicidal deaths during the study period. Out of
these 70 deaths, 51 (72.8%) were males and 19 (27.2%)
females (Table 1 and Figure 1).
The age range in which the most (55.7%) deaths
occurred was of 20-39 years (Table 2 and Figure 2). Most
of the deaths were due to stab wounds (57.1%) involving
chest and abdomen while remaining deaths (42.9%) were
due to incised wounds involving mostly the neck (Table 3
and Figure 3). It was also noticed that out of 40 stab
wounds deaths, chest was involved in majority of the
cases (n=24, 60%) followed by abdomen. Table 4 and
Figure 4 shows the frequency of body parts involved in
Percentage
15.7
55.7
20.0
8.6
100
deaths by sharp weapons.
DISCUSSION
Our study reports 70 sharp weapons death among all the
1653 medicolegal deaths, giving 4.2% incidence of sharp
weapons deaths in Lahore from January 2011 to
December 2012. A study conducted in Peshawar shows
that during the period of three years from Nov.1999 to
Oct.2002, 63 (3.1%) deaths out of 2060 cases were due
to sharp weapon injuries (Kaheri et al., 2003). A study
from Lahore during January - June, 2000 reported 23
(10.8%) sharp weapon deaths giving a slightly high
incidence of the deaths due to sharp weapons (Tajammul
Unique Res. J. Med. Med. Sci.
046
Figure 2. Graphic representation of age group involved.
Table 3. Type of sharp weapon injuries.
Type
Incision
Stab
Chop
Total
Frequency
30
40
0
70
Percentage
42.9 %
57.1 %
0
100
Figure 3. A pie chart showing percentage of type of sharp weapon injuries.
et al., 2005). A very significant finding of study was that
100% of the 70 sharp weapon deaths were homicides,
thus constituting 9.2% of the total 760 homicidal deaths
during our study period. A few other studies in Pakistan
have reported a comparatively higher rate of sharp
weapon deaths. In a study from Larkana from January December.1998, 17% cases were due to sharp weapons
(Qadire and Aziz, 2000). One year study at Faisalabad
showed 25.5% deaths were due to sharp weapons
(Bashir et al., 2004).
Stab injuries were the most common wounds
constituting 57.14% .among these, 24 injuries were on
chest involving heart and lungs and 16 were on
abdomen. The reason for choosing abdomen and chest
to be the elective site for stabbing may be explained by
the general common believe perpetuated among people
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Table 4. Frequency of body parts involved in deaths by sharp weapons.
Body Parts
Neck
Lung
Heart
Intestine
Liver
Spleen
Kidney
Total
Frequency
30
14
10
10
4
2
0
70
Percentage
43.0
20.0
14.3
14.3
5.8
2.6
0
100
Figure 4. A pie chart showing percentage of body parts involved in deaths by sharp weapon.
that chest and abdomen contain vital organs of the body
so, chances of death is almost sure, and perhaps may be
easily approachable. The severity of stab wounds is
based exclusively on the location and depth of
penetration. The other common injuries were incisions
involving neck. External jugular vein, carotid artery and
air passage was commonly involved.
Among the victims, males were 2.5 times more
frequent than females. Similar, male dominance has also
been reported by other studies in Pakistan. Qadire and
Aziz (2000) reported 4:1 male to female ratio in deaths in
Larkana. The male predominance may be explained by
the fact that the males by nature indulge in more violent
activities as compare to females. Family, tribal, clan, land
disputes and murder for honour sake is the common
causes in this part of the world. Higher incidence of sharp
weapon death was seen in the age group of 20-39 years.
Persons in this age group are more active, violent and
more vulnerable to the fast changing social trend and
culture. A noteworthy finding is that none of the sharp
weapon death in our study was due to suicide. Studies
within Pakistan have reported sharp weapons to account
in some measures of suicides. A study conducted in
Faisalabad reported suicides by sharp weapons to
comprise 4.2% of the reported suicides. Suicides by stab
wounds are rare, while hanging, firearm and poisoning
stands more common ways now (Saeed et al., 2002).
The global statistics show that pointed weapons are still
are being used for causing wounds as well as deaths,
though the ratio as compared to firearms displace decline
in majority of countries, barring England and India where
deaths due to cutting and stabbing shows a rising
frequency. The official statistics for England and Wales
indicate that the use of sharp object is the common
mechanism of homicide (29%), while firearm accounting
for only 9% and among the first world countries rates of
homicide by cutting or stabbing range between 0.2
(France) and 1.1 (USA) per 100,000 (Brennan et al.,
2006). Trends in the incidents and severity of stab
wounds in Sweden from 1987 to 1994 disclosed that the
total number of deaths was 45 out of 1315 cases of stab
wounds recorded during that period that is 3.4% fatality
ratio (Bostrom et al., 2000). A study of stab wounds was
made on patients who attended the Accident and
Emergency Department of Glasgow Royal Infirmary
during 1978-1983. There were 318 patients; the majority
Unique Res. J. Med. Med. Sci.
048
(304) was males. The most common sites of wounds
were chest (143 patients) and the abdomen (113
patients) (Swann et al., 1985). In Oslo and Copenhagen,
141 homicides by sharp forces were committed in ten
years from 1985 to 1994, accounted for 33% homicides
in this period (Rodge et al., 2000).
In New Delhi, during period of 1992 to 1996 out of 3886
medicolegal autopsies only 232 (5.9%) were homicidal
deaths and sharp weapons were more common that is
34.9% (Gupta, 2004).
Lahore is the most populated city of Pakistan and
number of medicolegal deaths is large, firearm having the
most important means which cover up the still prevailing
means of sharp weapons, but is hidden under the
massive effect of firearm (Marri et al., 2006; Bashir et al.,
2004).
Conclusion
Sharp weapon deaths continue to be a means of quite a
number of deaths in Lahore. It formed about 9.2% of all
homicides. Male victims outnumbered the female victims.
Majority of victims from the age group 20-39 years with
stab wounds dominated the incisions. Flaring up on trivial
issues may be the leading cause.
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