ABSTRACT
Serious bodily injury, from whatever cause, may either lead to virtually instantaneous death from destruction of vital organs and structures, or may cause delayed death from complications of the original injury. This delay may be short, as in torrential haemorrhage or acute respiratory failure, or it may be progressively longer, stretching into hours, days, weeks or even years. For example, the author (BK) dealt with a death in which a glider crash 15 years previously had to be implicated as the sole reason for the death, as the victim suffered a fractured spine, a paraplegia, paralysed bladder and recurring ascending urinary infection leading to death in renal failure from bilateral pyelonephritis.
