• Annals of surgery · Jun 2007

    Causes of death in U.S. Special Operations Forces in the global war on terrorism: 2001-2004.

    • John B Holcomb, Neil R McMullin, Lisa Pearse, Jim Caruso, Charles E Wade, Lynne Oetjen-Gerdes, Howard R Champion, Mimi Lawnick, Warner Farr, Sam Rodriguez, and Frank K Butler.
    • U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, 3400 Rawley E. Chambers Avenue, Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234, USA. John.Holcomb@amedd.army.mil
    • Ann. Surg. 2007 Jun 1; 245 (6): 986-91.

    BackgroundEffective combat trauma management strategies depend upon an understanding of the epidemiology of death on the battlefield.MethodsA panel of military medical experts reviewed photographs and autopsy and treatment records for all Special Operations Forces (SOF) who died between October 2001 and November 2004 (n = 82). Fatal wounds were classified as nonsurvivable or potentially survivable. Training and equipment available at the time of injury were taken into consideration. A structured analysis was conducted to identify equipment, training, or research requirements for improved future outcomes.ResultsFive (6%) of 82 casualties had died in an aircraft crash, and their bodies were lost at sea; autopsies had been performed on all other 77 soldiers. Nineteen deaths, including the deaths at sea were noncombat; all others were combat related. Deaths were caused by explosions (43%), gunshot wounds (28%), aircraft accidents (23%), and blunt trauma (6%). Seventy of 82 deaths (85%) were classified as nonsurvivable; 12 deaths (15%) were classified as potentially survivable. Of those with potentially survivable injuries, 16 causes of death were identified: 8 (50%) truncal hemorrhage, 3 (19%) compressible hemorrhage, 2 (13%) hemorrhage amenable to tourniquet, and 1 (6%) each from tension pneumothorax, airway obstruction, and sepsis. The population with nonsurvivable injuries was more severely injured than the population with potentially survivable injuries. Structured analysis identified improved methods of truncal hemorrhage control as a principal research requirement.ConclusionsThe majority of deaths on the modern battlefield are nonsurvivable. Improved methods of intravenous or intracavitary, noncompressible hemostasis combined with rapid evacuation to surgery may increase survival.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…