That's a tough call. They probably should have because accidents need to be registered as a medico-legal case per se. The examining physician will have no clue as to how the accident occurred. It could well have been because some other driver breached a traffic rule and cut the vicitm off causing the victim to lose balance. Or that the metro construction company negligently left debris or construction material lying around which caused the victim to swerve and lose balance (happened to a friend in law school who died on the spot).
But in reality doctors tend to be a little softer on out-of-town students knowing that these students don't want the rigmarole of a police investigation. But I agree with you that a bad head injury ought to be reported to the cops. Though unless the patient is lying unconscious in the hospital, it rarely happens. Regards, Nikhil Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel -----Original Message----- From: ss <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Wed, 2 May 2012 17:15:56 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [silk] Fwd: Justice On Wednesday 02 May 2012 5:00:13 pm Nikhil Mehra wrote: > That makes for an interesting analysis on the law of murder. If his prior > injury was outwardly visible, then their attack on that injury may place > their actions as those reasonably capable of causing the death of the > victim. Thanks for the interesting input. But if a chap falls off a scooter and is injured and has a head injury, I think the hospital should have registered it as a medicolegal case simply because these things happen. I am guessing that a casualty medical officer would have faced a dilemma over a chap who just fell off a scooter and had some injuries and thought why not give him first aid and send him home. But the problem is that the doctor knows only the patient's side of the story and perhaps needs to be more suspicious. What if the case was actually a hit and run where this guy had hit someone? A higher index of paranoia in ostensible accidents is always useful. I have actually seen stab injuries where the victim claimed that she fell on a knife because she did not want the stabber, her husband, to be implicated. The safest thing is to register a medicolegal case. If the head injury was severe enough to require rest for a week, it means that there was a de facto traffic offence for Bangalore - the guy is unlikely to have had a face/head injury if he was wearing a helmet. Besides if he had to res in bed for a week why was he out in the common room fighting over a TV remote control (as some reports say) shiv
