Abstract
In Florida, forensic anthropologists assist medical examiners and child protection investigators by assessing fracture patterns in dead and living pediatric patients, respectively. Since the “...possibility of child abuse is often overlooked in clinical practice,” forensic anthropologists tend to be called to assist medical examiners with pediatric autopsies because both healed and acute injuries inform the medical examiner’s findings concerning cause and manner of death (Kemp et al., 2008, p. 1). Even with the inclusion of the forensic anthropologist at autopsy, distinguishing acute accidental from acute nonaccidental injuries is difficult and may result in confusing findings. Despite these difficulties and with most states underutilizing forensic anthropologists, nearly 72,814 children bore evidence of physical abuse in the United States in 2018 (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2020). Physical child abuse has been linked to extrinsic stressors such as poverty and the un- or underemployment of parents and caregivers (Christian, 2015). Importantly, these extrinsic variables have risen with the COVID-19 pandemic; thereby, making research that investigates methods that help identify pediatric fractures at autopsy timely and important(Bryant, Oo, & Damian, 2020). Until now, most research into the etiology of blunt skeletal fractures has involved experimental studies on nonhuman exemplars (Baumer et al., 2010; Blackburne, Waddell, Swain, Alves de Sousa, & Kieser, 2016; Kleinman & Schlesinger, 1997) and meta-analysis of clinical and medical examiner cases (Bulloch et al., 2000; Cadzow & Armstrong, 2000; Fassier, Gaucherand, & Kohler, 2013; Kemp et al., 2008; Love, Derrick, & Wiersema, 2011; Love & Symes, 2004). In 2017, FGCU’s Human Identity and Trauma Analysis (HITA) program partnered with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida (CSWFL) as part of the latter’s larger project to remove invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades. By using Burmese pythons as an exemplar for human infant cadavers (between 0 and 1 year of age), I applied anterior (n = 30) and posterior (n = 30) compressions to python rib and conjoined vertebrae sections (n = 60) and recorded the evidence of fracture following Love and colleagues (2013). I grounded my research expectations to published studies involving accidental and nonaccidental injuries to the thorax (Cadzow & Armstrong, 2000; Gunther, Symes, & Berryman, 2000; Worn & Jones, 2007). I conducted this experimental research by teaming up with the Florida Gulf Coast University’s Bioengineering Honors students who in turn designed the compression plates that held the python sections while the Instron 5544a apparatus applied compressive force. This study fills a research gap by experimentally inducing rib fractures using the python nonhuman exemplars. Importantly, one python yielded multiple rib and vertebra sections that were intrinsically identical (e.g., genetically and morphologically). The long bodies of the euthanized invasive species allowed 8 – 10 sections comprising 24 ribs each that were comparable to the morphology of birth to one-year-old human infant thoraxes. Results of the experiment revealed that the anterior force of the anteroposterior compressions produced more fractures located on the anterior arc of the ribs. Correspondingly, the posterior force of the posteroanterior compressions produced more fractures located on the posterior arc of the ribs. These results were similar with findings from other researchers that observed anterior arc fractures from anteroposterior compressions such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Other researchers suggest posterior rib fractures result from levering during anteroposterior compression. Importantly, this study found posterior rib fractures from posteroanterior compressions, but the effect of levering was considered negligible because the Burmese Python anatomy does not allow for that particular mechanism of injury. These results contribute to the current literature and assist investigators in their understanding of the etiology of rib fractures that result from blunt force trauma.