[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Grimace

Having been on the receiving end of blast overpressure, I can say a couple things with assurity.

First, the blast somehow manages to daze/stun you temporarily. I'm guessing it has something to do with what it does to your head. I don't know if it's from the sudden and intense change of air pressure or not. I didn't hit my head against anything, but the helmet I had was blown off my head from the blast.

Could have been concussion from your brain sloshing back and forth inside the skull as your head bounced back, could have been overpressure effects on your ears. Anatomy & physiology isn't my strong suit but I'd look to those first as possible causes.

I could imagine if you were closer to a big enough concussive blast, it could probably have an adverse effect on your heart, and actually cause it to stop. I don't know about freezing your body, but I could see a blast killing a person by stopping their heart.

Yeah, I'd expect the body to fall over in such a case. I mean... blam, dead, yeah, but rigor mortis ain't that fast.

To my knowledge there are basically three methods, as Tegyrius mentioned, but they're slightly different than what he mentioned. Trauma from impact of the directly propelled object or from flying debris initiated by the object, concussive damage that damages the brain or internal organs, and shock caused by either trauma or blood loss. Considering that some people die from "blood loss" when they lose such a small portion of their blood, but go into shock from the blood loss, shock plays a fairly important and major role in causing death.

Yep. I can see the shock and blood loss (whether it's external or internal bleeding) coming from the tissue damage I mentioned. Also, I do think the compression wave damage to organs and the deceleration trauma from being flung and hitting the ground/scenery are technically separate mechanisms of injury, though they may well have the same net effect. Still, it looks like we're mostly in alignment.

I will caveat (and should have done so earlier) that I'm speaking academically, not from personal experience. This topic came up in a medical course I took last summer, and I went back through my notes and the class handouts to verify my recollections, but I have neither firsthand experience nor extensive formal training with blast injuries. YMMV.

- C.