Firearms injuries

• Bullet types

  • Lead: round nose, hollow point, etc

  • Partial metal jacket: soft-point, hollow point (stay in body; cops use ‘em)

  • Full metal jacket: leave body; military use

  • Special purpose: KTW (armor piercing)

• Never use metal clamps to remove a bullet…screws up rifling marks

• Entrance wounds

  • Marginal abrasions with a central defect

  • Contact or near contact

    • Over bone see soot, lacerations, and skin tears

    • Over soft-tissue: stippling and soot

    • Cherry red (from CO), charring, and muzzle imprint

  • Short-range: presence of soot

  • Intermediate range: stippling (tattooing), no soot

  • Long range or any range covered by clothes: just central defect with marginal abrasion

  • Eccentric: the bullet entered at an angle, so the marginal abrasion’s only on one side

  • Concentric: bullet was perpendicular; marginal abrasion all around wound

• Exit wounds

  • Are usually stellate

  • There may be a slit from bullet or fragments

  • Shored (supported by belt, bra, etc) – may have a marginal abrasion

• Beveling of bone

  • Penetrating wound (head trauma) bone will be beveled on inner table of skull

  • Perforating wound (head trauma) bone will be beveled on the inner table of the skull at the entrance site and the outer table of the skull at the exit wound

• Temporary cavities are directly related to the amount of KE absorbed by the tissue

Category: Forensic Medicine Notes , Medical Subject Notes