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Explosion In Boston And Town Of West Cause Similar Injuries

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The marathon bombing in Boston and the explosion in the town of West, Texas may seem completely unrelated. But the injuries they cause are remarkably similar. 

Whether a bomb explodes, or a fertilizer plant, for a surgeon there’s not much of a difference. Dr. Michael Foreman has treated both types of injuries. He’s Director of the Division of Trauma at Baylor Medical Center in Dallas. He says in both types of blasts damage is typically caused by flying fragments.

"If you’re hit by a nail that somebody put into their pipe bomb and it strikes you versus a nail that was sitting in a board that was at the place in West that got blown out and strikes you there’s really no difference other than the intent of the injury," he says.

Foreman says in an explosion, like a tornado, even tiny pieces of metal can become dangerous projectiles.

"You can think about it as a giant shot gun that’s shooting these projectiles out in a random fashion," he says. "They  tear tissue, they stretch tissue, they lacerate things.”

Treating blast injuries can be more complicated than treating say, a stab or bullet wound.  Dr. Foreman explains someone who has been near an explosion is likely to have multiple wounds, perhaps dozens. The debris or projectile that caused the damage though, isn’t what he’s paying attention to in the operating room.

"You treat the wound, you don’t treat the weapon.”

Lauren Silverman was the Health, Science & Technology reporter/blogger at KERA News. She was also the primary backup host for KERA’s Think and the statewide newsmagazine  Texas Standard. In 2016, Lauren was recognized as Texas Health Journalist of the Year by the Texas Medical Association. She was part of the Peabody Award-winning team that covered Ebola for NPR in 2014. She also hosted "Surviving Ebola," a special that won Best Long Documentary honors from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. (PRNDI). And she's won a number of regional awards, including an honorable mention for Edward R. Murrow award (for her project “The Broken Hip”), as well as the Texas Veterans Commission’s Excellence in Media Awards in the radio category.