Knife Wedge

Knife wedge is a term from forensic medicine . It describes the shape of the fracture in the bone when z. B. a bumper of a car with a long tubular bone , e.g. B. the shin collided. A wedge-shaped fragment forms, with the base of the wedge on the side of the bone from which the force comes.

It should be noted that the phrase "with the arrowhead pointing in the direction of violence", which is frequently used in textbooks, is misleading in that it can also be understood as "pointing in the direction from which the violence comes".

The Messerer-Wedge gets relevance (including criminal law) by clarifying how z. B. a pedestrian was hit by a car. If the pedestrian were possibly being followed by a car, one would expect violence from behind.

Furthermore, from the existence of a knife-wedge it can be deduced which leg was the supporting leg (namely the one with a knife-wedge fracture).