Understanding War Wounds

When fallen soldiers arrive at Dover Air Base, they undergo CT scans and autopsies, which reveal new details about how they died. Since 2004, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System has created an extensive database of combat injuries from the over-3,000 scans it has conducted. The scans have provided medical information for families and allowed for important discoveries about deficiencies in American armor. One doctor, for example, used the database to discover that the tubes used to treat soldiers with collapsed lungs were too short for most of the soldiers, and were therefore largely unsuccessful. The tubes have since been lengthened to fit “bigger and stronger” American soldiers. The database has also revealed that many of American deaths came from upper body injuries, which has caused armor with more plating to be shipped to troops.