AR-15 creates not a hole but a ‘cavity’ in body, St. Luke’s surgeon says of rifle’s d

[2DogsBarking]

Per the Morning Call - the AR-15 will lay waste to entire cities and exterminate all life on earth........or so one would believe from the tone:

https://www.mcall.com/health/mc-hea-...q6u-story.html

AR-15 creates not a hole but a ‘cavity’ in body, St. Luke’s surgeon says of rifle’s devastating power



Americans are becoming familiar with the AR-15 because of its notoriety as the preferred weapon of mass murderers. None are more aware of its damage than the nation’s trauma surgeons, including those in the Lehigh Valley, where 10 people were wounded in a mass shooting in Allentown involving the rifle earlier this month.

A bullet from the AR-15 rifle is three times as fast and as powerful as a bullet from a handgun. The bullet tumbles, so it damages a lot more tissue than bullets that travel in a straight line through the body, said Dr. Peter Thomas, director of the trauma program at St. Luke’s University Health Network.

“It doesn’t create a hole, it creates a cavity in the body,” he said.

Thomas didn’t treat any of the patients who were taken to St. Luke’s after at least three gunmen — two armed with AR-15s — fired at people leaving Deja Vu nightclub at Third and Hamilton streets on June 20 in what authorities called a gang-related shooting. But he has treated gunshot wounds, including AR-15 bullet injuries.

The high-velocity bullet destroys not just tissue in its path, but surrounding tissue as well. “We have to take more skin, muscle and bone, because of the size of the impact,” he said.
Police respond to a mass shooting involving AR-15 rifles that wounded 10 people outside Deja Vu nightclub on June 20.
Police respond to a mass shooting involving AR-15 rifles that wounded 10 people outside Deja Vu nightclub on June 20. (Rich Rolen/Special to The Morning Call)

While the vast majority of gunshot wounds treated at hospitals across the Lehigh Valley and the country are from handguns, doctors are being trained to deal with mass casualties in which powerful rifles are used.

Lightweight AR-15-style guns were used to kill 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, 58 people at a Las Vegas concert and 26 at a Texas church in 2017, and 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida last year.

The gunmen who used it in the Allentown shooting remained on the loose Saturday, as only the suspected getaway driver has been arrested. The weapon is out of the ordinary for Allentown shootings, according to city Councilman Daryl Hendricks, a retired city police officer.

It shows up maybe once a year at St. Luke’s, Thomas said.

The damage from a high-energy rifle is more serious and extensive than from a handgun, said Dr. Richard Sharpe, a trauma surgeon and former U.S. Navy doctor who served for more than two decades and was involved in combat operations. Treating such wounds requires the expertise and resources of a trauma center, where staff can triage quickly, draw from blood banks, stabilize patients, map out the bullet path and send people to surgery, he said.

“If someone’s shot with a rifle, they need a Level 1 trauma center,” Sharpe said. “They might not need blood, but at least they need a surgeon who’s used to seeing a high velocity wound.”

Police haven’t said where the Deja Vu victims were treated, though they said all were expected to survive. St. Luke’s-Fountain Hill and Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest are the Lehigh Valley’s only Level 1 trauma centers. St. Luke’s treated four patients, all of whom have been discharged, said spokesman Sam Kennedy. Lehigh Valley Health Network would not confirm that its trauma unit received any of the wounded and declined to discuss treatment of wounds from AR-15 rifles in general.

Patients shot with powerful rifles typically need more operations because of severe tissue damage, and also take longer to recover, said Dr. Jeremy Cannon, trauma medical director at the University of Pennsylvania Health System who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the U.S. Air Force. Comparing AR-15 wounds to those inflicted by handguns, he said: “The workload that goes into each one of these patients is the equivalent of two to three patients combined.”
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In published accounts, often after mass shootings, doctors have described the extensive destruction the weapon can inflict.

“The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path,” Dr. Heather Sher, a Florida radiologist, wrote in The Atlantic shortly after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last year. “It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.”

A mass shooting easily can overwhelm a hospital, Cannon said, which is why health systems are preparing staff for the possibility. The trainings can range from a discussion about how to manage multiple seriously injured patients to a simulation of a mass shooting emergency, Thomas, from St. Luke’s, said.

Simulations help a medical team practice how to quickly evaluate, move and treat patients. They also identify gaps and weak points in a hospital’s mass casualty plan.
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St. Luke’s is getting the community involved, training the public and specific groups in how to stop bleeding, Thomas said. The network has distributed tourniquets and blood- clotting materials, and conducted about 30 training sessions in the last year at police departments, schools, community centers and even with Girl Scouts, he said.

The interventions could make a difference.

“No matter how fast police and EMS get there, it’s still going to be minutes, and minutes can save lives when someone is bleeding to death," Thomas said.

“The ability to intervene," Cannon added, "can make people feel less helpless in these situations.”

[Gun]

So this surgeon never seen what the 45ACP, from a 5" 1911 will do.

There's no cavity, cuz there is nothing left to sew up!

[bogey1]

Geez imagine a .22lr to the temple.

Next...

[icp4life162005]

Wait, are they disappearing the alleged victims from the alleged Allentown shooting?

[Walleye Hunter]

Oh my! I can only imagine what a .308 would do.

[middlefinger]

[buxbandit]

Oh my! I can only imagine what a .308 would do.

But the AR 15 TUMBLES!!

[ShooterInPA1]

Geez imagine a .22lr to the temple.

Next...

Or a bolt from a crossbow.

[Yoder]

It's pretty obvious a .223 does more damage from a handgun. Especially if you are using the proper ammunition. This isn't news.

[Xringshooter]

Sounds to me like someone who wants their 15 minutes of fame/exposure.