Citation

O'Connell KJ, Frazier HA, Clark MA, Christenson PJ, Keyes BT, Josselson A. J. Forensic Sci. 1988; 33(2): 410-417.

Affiliation

Department of Surgery, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD.

Comment In:

J Forensic Sci 1990;35(2):228-30.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1988, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

3373158

Abstract

An animal model was designed to evaluate the ability of the standard military flak jacket to protect the kidneys from direct ballistic trauma. Yorkshire swine were anesthetized and their flanks were protected by flak jackets. Ballistic insults ranging from a low-velocity handgun to a high-velocity rifle were evaluated. The results demonstrate that a flak jacket provides adequate protection against low- and mid-velocity projectiles since none of the animals from this group had evidence of internal trauma and because only minor superficial surgical attention would have been required. Survivability in each case was considered to be excellent. The flak jacket failed to provide any protection against several types of high-velocity bullets. These weapons caused severe internal injury to the genitourinary system as well as to other major organ systems. Survival would have been unlikely.

Language: en