Hi all,

I am working on a plot for a mystery where my victim is first knocked unconcious then pushed (not thrown) from a balcony.  I need the ME to be able to discern that at least one of the head wounds occured before the fall.  Does anyone know if the ME would be able to do that?   Thanks

Kia

I don't know what the circumstances are of the prior injury, but I believe so, yes. I'm not an expert, just looked a few things up, but I think in this instance, it'd be a forensic medical examiner whose would determine the cause of death, and he should be able to determine which injury(ies) killed the person and whether there was any foul play, etc. This might help out a little: http://health.howstuffworks.com/diseases-conditions/death-dying/autopsy.htm

Yes. They should be able to do that. Especially if the head wounds are NOT  consistant with a fall.  If you want Dr G medical examiner, I do believe she did a case like this where she could tell the head wounds were not caused by a fall from a train but beforehand.  

Thanks.

On Bones (my intellectual resource for research, LOL), they can tell which injuries happened after death because the blood is no longer flowing after death, so those injuries don't have the same blood pooling attributes as injuries that happened while the heart was still beating and blood was still flowing. Hope that helps...