Medicolegal autopsies of violent deaths in northern Norway 1972-1992.

The aim of this paper is to describe the characteristics of medicolegal autopsies of violent deaths in northern Norway over a period of 20 years. On request by the police, 1446 violent deaths were examined--82.6% males and 17.4% females. The mean age was 40.2 years (range 0-98). The most frequent violent manners of death were suicides (24.9%), deaths caused by motor vehicle traffic accidents (18.6%), accidental poisoning (11.5%) and boating incidents (8.4%). Homicides and involuntary manslaughter came to 4.4% and 1.7%, respectively, whereas in 11.4% of cases the manner of death was unknown. The five most frequent causes of death were blunt injury (31.4%), drowning (17.4%), suffocation (11.8%), firearm (11.3%) and poisoning (10.5%). In 3.5% of the cases the cause of death was unknown. The spectrum of the manner of death and the cause of death in a subarctic population is discussed with reference to legislation, practise of request and information given by the police.