Identifying Skeletal Trauma Distribution Patterns by Event Type: A Comparison Between Blast and Non-Blast Events With Similar Physical Etiologies

There is a need in forensic anthropology to better understand the relationship between trauma events and the appearance of skeletal trauma in the skeleton. In particular, skeletal blast trauma remains an aspect of trauma analysis that is still not fully understood. In order to examine blast trauma and how it compares to similar types of trauma, this dissertation examined cases from both medical examiner’s offices and the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Blast events were examined, and events that also cause trauma through a single, large impact surface, high-velocity impact were selected as comparative, including: aircraft crashes, falls from a height, and motor vehicle and pedestrian collisions (MVP). The trauma locations, event data, and decedent data were collected for analysis at a zonal level within each bone element. A factor analysis of mixed data was performed on all cases together, and the civilian and military cases in isolation. The results indicate that the blast and aircraft crash event types were less closely associated than MVPs and falls, and that MVPs and falls were closely associated. In order to examine if there were significant differences between trauma counts by event type, the data were subjected to a Fisher’s exact test for each zone, element, region, and area for each event type comparison. Many zones, elements, regions, and areas were significant in the results, indicating that with more research, trauma distribution studies such as this one could provide valuable comparative tools for trauma analysis for practitioners.