Prominent Injury Types in Vehicle Underbody Blast

To fully understand the injury mechanisms during an underbody blast (UBB) event with military vehicles and develop new testing standards specific to military vehicles, one must understand the injuries sustained by the occupants.

Injury data from Service Members (SM) involved in UBB theater events that occurred from 2010 to 2014 were analyzed. Analysis included the investigation of prominent skeletal and visceral torso injuries. Results were categorized by killed-in-action (n = 132 SM) and wounded-in-action (n = 1,887 SM).

Over 90% (553/606 SM) of casualties in UBB events with Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 2+ injury sustained at least one skeletal fracture, when excluding concussion. The most frequent skeletal injuries from UBB were foot fractures (13% of injuries) for wounded-in-action and tibia/fibula fractures (10% of injuries) for killed-in-action. Only 1% (11/1037 SM) of all casualties with AIS 2+ injuries had visceral torso injuries without also sustaining skeletal fractures. In these few casualties, the coded injuries were likely due to trauma from a loading path other than direct UBB loading.

Skeletal fractures are the most frequent AIS 2+ injury resulting from UBB events. Visceral torso injuries are infrequent in individuals that survive and they generally occur in conjunction with skeletal injuries.