Design and injury assessment criteria for blunt ballistic impacts

BACKGROUND: Less-lethal technologies are used in situations where lethal force is not warranted; however, a variety of injuries have been reported. Design and injury criteria are needed to assess the safety of these munitions. METHODS: Injury data from ballistic impacts of cadavers were analyzed to validate design and injury criteria. Logistic regression analysis determined the predictive ability of the blunt criterion (BC) for munition design and the viscous criterion (VC) for injury risk assessment. Differences in risk for men and women were determined. RESULTS: For a 50% risk of Abbreviated Injury Scale 2 or 3 thoracic injury, BC = 0.37 (chi = 17.71, p = 0.001) and VCmax = 0.8 m/s (chi = 11.28, p = 0.001). The 5th percentile female subject has a 36% lower tolerance to ballistic energy than the 50the percentile male subject. CONCLUSION: The BC can be used in the development of kinetic energy munitions and the VC for testing impact injury risk. These criteria provide much needed tools for the development and progression of less-lethal munitions.