One of the most commonly encountered types of trauma resulting in serious injury or in traumatic death is blunt force injury. Blunt force injury is defined as injury resulting from impact with a blunt object, i.e., one that does not possess any sharp edges. Examples of blunt objects include hammers, baseball bats, fists, the interior surfaces of vehicles, roads, trees, floors, walls, furniture, and even fluid objects such as bodies of water (if the speed of impact is sufficiently high). Blunt force injuries are made up of five subgroups, each representing a different response to the transfer of force from a blunt object onto or into the body. Many blunt force injury cases, such as those that occur in vehicle collisions and following falls or jumps from heights, involve forces that are associated with sudden deceleration (or acceleration in certain motor vehicle–related cases) which may significantly contribute to the overall injuries. Thus, the term “blunt force injury” should also...
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Prahlow, J.A., Byard, R.W. (2012). Blunt Force Injury Deaths. In: Prahlow, J.A., Byard, R.W. (eds) Atlas of Forensic Pathology. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-058-4_12
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