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Gunshot and Blast Wounds

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Forensic Medicine

Abstract

Gunshot wounds are generally treated as an injury entity in their own right; however, it would not be unreasonable to classify them as a special form of blunt trauma. In the present work, the authors propose an alternative classification as “puncture trauma”: a bullet or similar object having a minimal surface area but travelling at great speed comes into contact with a body. A similar mechanism to that of a projectile is seen with bird beaks, arrows, or spears. Thus, injuries due to arrows (bow or crossbow), spears, and bird beaks can be classified as “puncture trauma.” Bird-beak injuries most commonly affect the scalp and cranial vault in hikers or joggers who inadvertently approach the nests of birds of prey, such as buzzards.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Gießen, Gießen, Germany

    Reinhard B. Dettmeyer, Marcel A. Verhoff & Harald F. Schütz

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  1. Reinhard B. Dettmeyer
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  2. Marcel A. Verhoff
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  3. Harald F. Schütz
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Dettmeyer, R.B., Verhoff, M.A., Schütz, H.F. (2014). Gunshot and Blast Wounds. In: Forensic Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38818-7_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38818-7_10

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-38817-0

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