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I hate .22 !!!!!!
I just finished a 3 1/2 hr operation in the human body of a post christmas depressed patient that tried to end it all with a self inflicted GSW with his .22 LR to the chest (1st pic). Entrance just under the breast bone and exit left kidney area (2nd pic, butt to the left, head to the right...he's tilted on his side).
On its merry journey, it hit the left lobe of liver, the stuff that holds the large intestine (just missing the colon by 1/2 inch), lacerating the duodenum (beginning of the small intestine where it then becomes the jejunum.... where it's a bitch to repair, missed the aorta by 2-3 mm, bounces of the spine, goes left up through the end of the pancreas, through the spleen, bounces again off of a rib, goes down next to the kidney, lacerating it and finally out the back!!
It just goes to show, it's not the caliber of the bullet but : SHOT PLACEMENT EVERY TIME....and bouncy little bullets that hit more things and keep trauma surgeons in the OR longer!! Atleast big bullets travel in straighter lines and in more predictable ways..... This is why I love ballistics.......
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'Revel in action, translate perceptions into instant judgements, and these into actions that are irrevocable, monumentous and dreadful - all this with lightning speed, in conditions of great stress and in an environment of high tension:what is expected of "us" is the impossible, yet we deliver just that.
(adapted from: Sherwin B. Nuland, MD, surgeon and author: The Wisdom of the Body, 1997 )
Education is the anti-ignorance we all need to better treat our patients. ss, 2008.
The blade is so sharp that the incision is perfect. They don't realize they've been cut until they're out of the fight: A Surgeon Warrior. I use a knife to defend life and to save it. ss (aka traumadoc)
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