Death due to accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound

A 37-year-old man, with the entrance gunshot wound on the front of the right leg several cm above the knee, was found dead at home in his bed. No other lesions were observed except a contusion ring around the wound that spread downward and to the right. On autopsy, the wound path was followed upward from the entrance wound (0.7 cm in diameter). The bullet went through the medial aspect of the quadriceps and adductor muscles and continued upward, adjacently to the internal iliac artery, perforating the pelvic floor and the median lobe of the prostate. It passed by the left kidney, injuring its fatty capsule, then went through the mesentery near the left segment of the transverse and descending colon, and entered the thoracic cavity through the diaphragm, injuring the posterior wall of the pericardium and the posterior wall of the left ventricle at the level of the first left rib. The bullet was found in the apex of the left lung. Death was caused by cardiac tamponade.