Keep in mind that the hyoid bone is in your throat...basically your adams apple. It’s not going to get stressed in a bike accident. But it does get stressed when you’ve got a rope around your neck, or someone’s hands. That’s why a broken hyoid is considered a telltale sign of strangulation. Hyoids in older men are also more prone to breaking because they ossify over time. These are factoids I’ve gathered from a few articles posted here on FR.
What’s bugging me is the examiner’s use of the plural “bones”. To me, strictly speaking, this would mean that not just the hyoid but also vertebrae were broken. And here I agree with you that it takes some pretty extreme forces to break vertebrae, forces that are unlikely in my non-expert opinion to be present in either a kneeling self-strangulation OR a manual strangulation by another person. I think you’d only get forces like that in a drop hanging but they’re saying that’s not what happened.
I didn’t even mention Football, even worse that Motocross on the neck. I agree, depends on which were broken. We will probably never get the truth about that detail though.
Was merely a nurse but this is bugging me also. Rope around the neck would certainly snap the hyoid and cervicals but he'd have to somehow swan dive off a bunk with bed sheets and twist somehow while putting full weight of his over six foot body before hitting the ground? That's some serious physics.
Objectively I can't see this, but since it's written all over the media and don't want to be considered a conspiracy theorist with those nasty Red Flag laws a coming, then I BELIEVE!*cough*
I think you’d only get forces like that in a drop hanging but they’re saying that’s not what happened.