Tipoc said:
I want to make the point that this has nothing to do with the theories of hydraulic shock, hydrostatic shock, or energy dump. It is not a theory at all simply a description of what bullets do and how the body reacts to the trauma of handgun bullets.
Understood. But you may be beating a dead horse.
There is clearly damage done to human tissue by bullets in addition to the direct (or slightly indirect) projectile damage done to tissue. But there is little or no evidence that such damage (in what we're calling the temporary wound cavity) is incapacitating or has a true "stopping" effect.
You may be right, but you've offered no evidence; you believe it intuitively obvious. It once seemed intuitively obvious to me, too, until I started reading more closely some of the studies we've been discussing.
I would note, however, that some of those older studies and results, including some of Fackler's findings -- including his belief that hydrostatic shock/pressure has no effect on the body -- are not correct.
It remains clear --
and you never claimed otherwise -- that far greater damage is done by the projectile's direct effects on critical organs, bone structure, or the central nervous system, than the indirect effects of temporary wound cavities. None of the research pays much attention to temporary wound cavities. You do.
What I had not appreciated prior to this discussion (and related reading), was the indirect effects of round-related hydrostatic pressure on other organs or parts of the nervous system, like the hypocampus in the brain.
The
relationship between a temporary wound cavity
and hydrostatic pressure was not addressed in the studies we've discussed;
indeed, the temporary wound cavity and the site of the permanent wound track can be quite distant from the affected organs or systems when hydrostatic shock or pressure causes damage.
I understand that YOU make no claims about hydrostatic shock and it's relationship to the temporary wound cavity, but the hydrostatic pressure does seem to cause the temporary would cavity. The fact that hydrostatic pressure may generate a temporary wound cavity is accepted. But the damage of the temporary wound cavity -- that stretching of tissue (or as you claim, tearing) -- may be a relatively inconsequential SIDE-EFFECT of that pressure, and the pressure itself may cause greater damage elsewhere, away from the temporary wound cavity. But as noted earlier and below, that will happen ONLY if the pressure is quite substantial. Most handgun rounds don't generate that level of pressure.
Tipoc said:
Can the violent "stretching" rupture an artery, damage an organ and cause intense pain? Yes. It is violent trauma to the body.
I'm sure that's possible, but surgeons and pathologists find little evidence of significant temporary wound cavity damage. Others participating here who have some knowledge of the body tell us that tissue is much more resilient than is commonly understood; stretching rather than rupture or tearing is common tissue behavior. We also know that the pain of a wound can be a non-issue for a number of reasons. While there can be psychological stops from trivial wounds, some folks continue the battle despite horrendous damage.
The Hydrostatic Shock study focused on the wounding effect of hydrostatic pressure and addressed the
remote consequences of that pressure, rather than nearby/adjacent damage to the wound track. That study seemed to ignore temporary wound cavities altogether -- despite them, we assume, being caused by hydrostatic pressure -- finding it important only when there is damage caused by bullet fragmentation (which tears rather than stretches tissue.)
If a vein or artery is torn (stretched enough to rip) in the temporary wound cavity, its effect would be seen and would have to be repaired by the surgeons working on the wounds; if not quickly repaired, the damage would soon be noticed. The pathologists, coroners, or medical scientists doing post-mortem studies also explore and seek such evidence. The type of damage you address, as best I can tell, is not frequently observed in post-conflict surgeries or post-mortem studies.
In the case of routine post-mortem analysis, such damage may be overlooked -- for if the heart and vascular system aren't working, the leaks or hematomas that would be obvious in living tissue wouldn't be seen. Internal damage to a liver or kidney might also be missed unless those organs are dissected in the study.
Given what we know now, it seems that the hydrostatic pressure that causes the temporary wound cavity can cause severe but indirect damage
elsewhere, and may do so even if the temporary wound cavity itself does not cause disabling effects.
That was a new factor for me.
In support of your argument, it might be possible that the temporary wound cavity is a factor when the round being used hits close to, but does not directly interact with, a key structure or organ.
The surgeons or pathologists doing the work might then wrongly consider that form of indirect damage to be a part of the DIRECT effect of the bullet rather than an effect of the pressures that caused the temporary would cavity.
The studies we've discussed thus far suggest that direct impact on key bodily systems -- heart, brain, spine, lungs, key bone structures -- is the most important effect of the bullet in the human body. A less obvious effect, but one that is potentially disabling and important, is the role of hydrostatic pressure on the body and its neural and vascular systems. Until
Limnophile threw that into the discussion, I had not seen it clinically addressed.
Temporary wound cavities seem the least important of all such effects, and are seldom mentioned, except to discount their role.
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I can beat on a dead horse, too -- my continuing pet peeve regarding the use of ballistic gel as a way of evaluating round effectiveness. I'm not convinced that what we call the temporary wound cavity seen in many of the FBI Ballistic Gel evaluations of different rounds can be equated to the damage actually done in the human body. Gel isn't held together by countless thousands of connective bonds, at the cellular level, or by ligaments, nerves, capillaries, veins, arteries etc. Gel is simply ripped apart, while human tissue stretches because of those many connective bonds.
More importantly, gel-based analysis offers no way to assess the indirect effects of hydrostatic pressure on other body systems.
The visual effect of massively distorted FBI ballistic gel seen with some self-defense rounds is impressive, but how the gel is disrupted and how human tissue is affected are not the same. A powerful round may generate a lot of ballistic shock, but the effects of that shock visible in ballistic gel can't necessarily be associated with a similar effect in the human body. How that pressure and shock is transferred through human tissue would seem to be quite be different than how it's transferred through ballistic gel.
As noted in several earlier responses, darned few rounds are powerful enough to do that while also generating the hydrostatic pressure needed to generate that remote damage: an average of 300 ft/lbs of pressure throughout the 12" wound track (or 500 ft/lbs overall ). Given that, the role of hydrostatic shock and pressure is still open to question in ballistic gel and most handgun-involved shootings. Shots taken at close range, or shots that are near the spine or key parts of vascular system may still have shock-related effects not fully understood. Energy dump MIGHT be important, but probably only if you're using a very powerful handgun: .44 magnum, .45 +P, .357 Magnum, or .357 SIG.
Ballistic gel, however, remains the most effective method we have to measure the ability of a round to penetrate a human tissue simulation - and penetration remains critical in all of the studies we've discussed. As the study of hydrostatic effects notes, unless the round penetrates sufficiently (they mention the FBI 12" standard), the ability of a round to produce harmful hydrostatic pressure is apparently greatly reduced.
This causes me to think that the dramatic damage caused by some of the rounds tested and demonstrated in ballistic gel is possibly misleading, and may be more present in gel than in human tissue.
.