Accidental blast of an improvised bird scarer gun: a case report

Blast injuries are encountered frequently these days in the civilian population due to terrorist activities and unsafe use of explosives. Explosive related deaths fall into three categories, namely; accidental, homicidal and suicidal. Accidental deaths usually occur either at the workplace or when untrained individuals handle legal, unlicensed or illegal fireworks and inflammable explosive materials or substances. In medico-legal practice, forensic medicine experts face chemical explosions more commonly as compared to the mechanical explosions. The authors present a case of accidental blast with classical blast injuries and thermal burns due to explosion during mixing up of explosive materials in animprovised bird scarer gun by a farm caretaker