injuries poisoning
Explosives and Blast Injuries
Symptoms and Signs of Explosive and Blast Injuries
Most injuries (eg, fractures, lacerations, brain injuries) manifest the same as in other types of trauma. Blast lung injury may cause dyspnea, hemoptysis, cough, chest pain, tachypnea, wheezing, decreased breath sounds, apnea, hypoxia, cyanosis, and hemodynamic instability. Air embolism may manifest as stroke, myocardial infarction, acute abdomen, blindness, deafness, spinal cord injury, or claudication. Damage to the tympanic membrane and the inner ear may impair hearing, which should always be assessed. Patients with abdominal blast injury may have abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, hematemesis, rectal pain, tenesmus, testicular pain, and unexplained hypovolemia. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) may manifest immediately and resolve or leave residual neurocognitive affects of varying degree. There also is concern that multiple lower-level blast exposures may have a cumulative deleterious neurocognitive effect and perhaps lead to 