What I Saw Treating The Victims From Parkland Should Change The Debate On Guns
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 10 months ago
Heather Sher runs it down for us.
I have seen a handful of AR-15 injuries in my career. I saw one from a man shot in the back by a SWAT team years ago. The injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury. The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat travelling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.
Hmm … cigarette boat. I appreciate the medical terminology, Heather. So let’s see. Rifle shots do more damage than pistol shots because of muzzle velocity, whether fired from an AR-15 or a .243 or .270 bolt action deer rifle, because of hydrostatic shock and cavitation.
Who knew? And to think, all she had to do was get a medical degree to figure this out. Not even deer and hog hunters knew all of this stuff. If they had know that kind of information I’m sure they would have left all their pistols in the gun safe and switched to rifles by now.
Wow. Thanks Heather. We’re all richer for your teaching us about that.
On February 24, 2018 at 12:49 am, Poncho said:
My favorite part and how I know the author was lying was when the “exit wounds were the size of oranges.”
Only time I ever saw something like that was one time with a soft tip .300wm on a small whitetail at 50m. Human bodies aren’t so different and having seen the results of humans shot multiple times with both .556 and 7.62×39 I can say with certainty that it never looked anything as she described. At least upon visual inspection as we did a BDA.
On February 24, 2018 at 7:56 am, Frank Clarke said:
I think she has unwittingly made the case for armed teachers, whatever the weapon. Even if her wish for all AR-15s to magically go away DID come true, there are still millions of similarly dangerous weapons in circulation. The only reasonable response to a mass shooting is to stop it as quickly as possible. One local SRO or one far-away SWAT team is ‘too little too late’. Teachers and on-site school staff must be able to respond in seconds if the goal is to prevent students being killed (admittedly, a big ‘if’).
http://tinyurl.com/TipgPt2
On February 24, 2018 at 8:05 am, MamaLiberty said:
I have yet to see anyone (except myself) ask the questions here:
Why do people congregate hundreds, or thousands of helpless children in one place?
Why do people send their children to government indoctrination camps and expect others to keep them safe?
Why do they trust people with obvious ulterior motives to educate their children, much less to keep them safe?
Take a look at the real reason the Florida killer was allowed to become a mass murderer.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/966854507744374784.html
On February 24, 2018 at 1:17 pm, moe mensale said:
There are so many lies, deflections and emotional bullshit in this article it gave me a headache. How can such a supposedly “smart” person like the good doctor be so utterly stupid and clueless?
“If politicians want to back comprehensive mental-health reform, I am all for it. As a medical doctor, I’ve witnessed firsthand the toll that mental-health issues take on families and the individuals themselves who have no access to satisfactory long-term mental-health care. But the president and Congress should not use this issue as an excuse to deliberately overlook the fact that the use of AR-15 rifles is the common denominator in many mass shootings.”
Mental health is the issue, not an excuse. The over-reliance on psychotropic drugs for our young people is the common denominator and the medical profession is well aware of it. But you know, money.
On February 24, 2018 at 3:11 pm, Fred said:
I’m a government psychiatrist and I’m here to help.
On February 24, 2018 at 5:25 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Dr. Sher, since she has the letters “M.D. after her name, apparently believes that she is an instant authority on issues pertaining to firearms.
Wrong, doctor – actually you are committing the argumentative fallacy known as an “appeal to authority,” or in Latin, argumentum ad verecundiam. In other words, you are waving your credentials in our faces and de facto claiming that they alone make your argument worth taking seriously.
Some physicians know a great deal about firearms and should be taken seriously on the issue; others know very little and should be ignored. Dr. Sher clearly fits into the latter category.
On February 24, 2018 at 9:37 pm, Tony said:
Advanced degrees in one field do not automatically confer expertise in any other. She may have an MD in medicine, but she’s just a BOH (bag of hammers) in this subject area.
On February 24, 2018 at 11:44 pm, millard fillmore said:
At the end of WWII,a German prisoner who knew english quite well asked my father if he could just see a .45 acp cartridge.He asked why they exploded when they hit.My father explained that they didn’t.The guy then showed him a large exit wound on his leg from a .45 slug the German took during the retreat from Paris.Even pistol bullets can cause significant damage if they hit the ‘right’ way.Banning Ar-15’s won’t stop that,doc.
On February 25, 2018 at 2:21 am, Dan said:
Dr. Scher is a radiologist. Radiologists RARELY actually SEE A PATIENT. The only time they do is when they are performing an interventional procedure like an angiogram or some other SPECIALIZED procedure.
For 99% of hospital and ER patients the radiologist ONLY SEES THE IMAGES that the X RAY TECH produces. It is the TECHNOLOGIST who actually sees, touches and interacts with virtually ALL patients seen by a
Medical Imaging Department. Dr. Scher is bullshitting us. She has been
shown to be a BIG HILDABEAST donor….so she is doing nothing but serving the libtard commie agenda. And how do I KNOW this? Because for FOURTY YEARS I have been one of the people who actually SEES the patients and creates the images that a radiologist reads. And I can say with ironclad certainty that Dr. Scher NEVER LAID EYES on the victims of these shootings. The radiographs MAYBE….but NOT THE VICTIMS.
On February 25, 2018 at 6:44 pm, Pat Hines said:
I worked as an OR nurse for over 15 years, I am a RN, BSN from THE University of North Carolina. I learned the OR at UNC hospital, a huge and complex institution. My first gun shot victim was at this location. He eventually died, from a .22 Long rifle projectile to his chest which nicked his aorta.
I actually worked, when first in California, in Alameda county hospital, where all the “gun and knife club” victims were taken. Yes, I scrubbed on a gun shot victim there, too.
In the army reserve, I commanded a surgical team. I know about these things