Physical Injuries and Fatalities Resulting From the Oklahoma City Bombing

Evaluation of trauma patterns in blast injuries using multiple correspondence analysis

“…Enclosed blast injuries present with similar diffuse and broad patterns of injuries but with more fragmentation caused from secondary blast trauma, or shock waves. In the Oklahoma City bombing, 75% of the victims had extremity trauma [43]; whereas in the Madrid train bombings, the head and neck area was the most injured followed with the extremities [28,48,49]. The diffuse injury and fragmentation of the extremities in the Bosnian blast-injury cases were associated with a rocket-propelled grenade that had been launched into a closed environment; therefore the fracture patterns are expected to be more similar to an enclosed contexts rather than an open air context [45].…”

Disaster Medicine: Conventional Terrorist Bombings

“…The incidence of head injuries from terrorist bombings ranges from 10.8 -63%. 5,14,21,28,33 Mortality rates for bombing can be deceptive. The casualties should be broken down into immediate on-scene mortality, number of critically injured survivors (ISS >15), and overall mortality in hospitalized survivors.…”

“…3,5,32 The 1980 bombing of the central railway station in Bologna, Italy; the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon (69% fatality rate); and the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (22% fatality rate) produced high fatality rates from building collapse. 5,3233,35 In one report of 55 ' casualties in a civilian bus bombing, 11 suffered lung injuries and 4 had gastrointestinal trauma. 15 Ina review of 200 bombing incidents worldwide involving 3357 casualties, Frykberg and Tepas found that the immediate on-scene fatality rate was 13%.…”

“…The World Trade Center bombing in New York City in 1993 resulted in more than 1000 injuries, 6 deaths, and $510 million in damage. 5 In the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, there were 168 persons killed, 83 hospitalized and 509 treated as outpatients. 5,6 Thus, civilian emergency departments in the United States must be prepared for the possibility of large numbers of bombing victims.…”

Epidemiologic clues to bioterrorism

“…1,2 The impetus for this program stemmed from a combination of high profile terrorist events in the United States, revelation of the extent of chemical and biological weapons development programs in Iraq and the former Soviet Union, and fictional and non-fictional accounts describing this threat to our civilian population. [3][4][5][6][7] Recent events, including those of September 11 and the cases of anthrax resulting from the intentional release of Bacillus anthracis, have accentuated the need for concerted efforts to counter chemical and biological terrorism. [8][9][10][11][12] The first documented deliberate use of a biological agent on a population in the United States occurred in 1984, when members of the Rajneesh sect contaminated food with Salmonella serotype typhimurium to test their ability to influence voter turnout at an upcoming election, causing illness in 751 people.…”