Boston Marathon Bombings Lead to At Least 10 Amputations

The terrible bombings in Boston led to a number of amputations and highlighted recent medical advances made on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Monday’s bomb attack on the Boston Marathon produced a number of injuries rarely seen outside of war zones — traumatic limb amputations,” reported the Los Angeles Times.

Although amputations, as well as traumatic brain injuries, are all too common injuries seen in the recent conflicts U.S. soldiers have been involved in, in the Middle East, there’s a limit to what medicine can do when people lose a limb.

The L.A. Times reported science has made considerable strides in reattaching severed limbs in the last 20 years, but the nature of bomb blast injuries makes such repairs impossible.

“The only types of injuries that can be re-implanted are those involving clean separations, like a limb that’s been cut off by a sword or industrial machinery that cleanly cuts the arm or leg off,” said Dr. Jeffrey Eckardt, chairman of the orthopedic surgery department at UCLA, in the newspaper report. “With an explosion, whole sections of the bone and muscles are gone. Vessels and nerves get pulled and stretched and yanked.”

Staff at Boston Medical Center treated 23 blast victims after the bombings, seven amputations were performed on five patients as of Wednesday morning.

As a Virginia Beach personal injury lawyer I help accident victims who have lost limbs, although fortunately not on the scale of the terrible tragedy in Boston.

Motorcycle riders face a higher risk of amputation, after they are involved in an accident, because their legs have less protection that in seen in car drivers.

Accidents in which motorcyclists lose a leg are more common than we would like to think. In an accident last year, a motorcyclist lost his leg in 2010 in Washington state when he hit a sign at a high speed.

The lack of protection afforded by a motorcycle to its rider means motorcyclists’ legs often take the full force of an impact during a crash.

Amputation is such a significant issue for riders there is even a website called Motorcycle Amputee that provides support for motorcyclists who have lost limbs in accidents.

The Norfolk, VA based personal injury law firm, Cooper Hurley with client meeting locations in Virginia Beach and Hampton, handles automobile, truck, and motorcycle injuries as well as wrongful death, railroad injury cases and medical malpractice. Attorneys John Cooper and Jim Hurley have more than 40 years of combined experience in specializing in auto injury as well as other accident claims. Cooper Hurley represents people hurt in accidents in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News and throughout VA. Our motto is: “Your Injury. Our fight.” If you need help or advice about a serious injury, please call us at (757) 455 -0077 or contact us through this website.