So What Did Margie Say About...Bones, oops The Following

Sorry folks but I was at a meeting on 4/22/13 and didn't make it home in time to catch Bones but I did watch "The Following" episode titled 'The End is Near'. Watching all the stabbings and shootings made me consider the importance of knowing about injuries and trauma.

 

Being a bloodstain pattern analyst, it becomes important to have an understanding of what injuries may cause what type of blood loss and what injuries may immobilize the victim.

 

If the injury is caused by a sharp object, one should ask: is the injury wider than it is deep?  Is there a hilt mark bruise? Did the wound have clean edges or ragged edges?  Was an artery or vein cut?  Did the injury cross the body's Langer Lines (lines of cleavage which will determine if the skin remains together or if the wounds are gaping wounds)?  Are major organs cut?  Have bones been nicked?  Has the body gone into shock?  What is the activity and/or adrenalin level of the victim?

 

It seemed amazing to me that the several people who were stabbed in the abdomen appeared to die immediately.  That is with the exception of one of the main characters.  Joe received a similar type knife stabbing wound yet was mobile and relatively coherent.  He also received an additional stab wound in the existing area of the injury with a fork and did not suffer the same fate as the others but remained alive and kicking.

 

Actually I would believe the lingering of Joe over the "drop dead" drama of the others.  I once saw the aftermath of an eight year old girl who rode her bicycle into a plate glass window and suffered a deep severe cut to the throat from the broken glass.  She continued to ride her bike several blocks to get to her grandmother's house before she collapsed dead in the front yard. No one would have believed she could have lived that long with that drastic of an injury much less participated in such action as riding a bike.

 

The body is an amazing creation.  It is durable and unpredictable.  But so is the mind and the psyche.  Police Officers have been known to die from nonfatal injuries because of their mindset of having seen so many injuries and death during the course of their careers.  They can't believe it when it happens to them and something in their make up just gives up.  Others suffer injuries that should be immediately fatal but survive to live a long life.

 

I'm not even going to get into the gun shot wounds......