How does a blast wave kill you?

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Grimace

No, not combat for me. Underground mining and blasting "rounds". Still, the blasts were fairly sizable, and I while I was "technically" at a safe distance, when close to 700 pounds(around 300 kilos)of explosives went off, it still had quite an impressive effect on me. I could only imagine what it would be like being closer to the blast and within range of the flying debris.

Ah, underground blasting. I've never done any of that. To be honest I don't think I'd want to. Those 300kg of explosives must have been in smaller rounds on delay, surely? That's a hell of a blast all in one go. Don't get me wrong, here in Australia on the iron ore mines they let off tonnes of the stuff at a time but it's in a ripple, quarter-second or so delays between lines of blast holes.

[Grimace]

300 kg of explosive put into 36 holes, detonated in a series. 0.1 ms up to 20 ms delay. Det cord was used to set off the blasting caps. So when you were a long distance away you could hear "pwump-pwump-pwump-pwump" in rapid succession. When you were the distance I was, into one big PWUMPF!

[James Langham]

Another injury often forgotten is cranial compression, caused (in this case) by a bleed inside the skull putting pressure on the brain. Signs and symptoms may not show for up to 48 hrs after the impact and it can be fatal (the actress Natasha Richardson is a good example). It is the reason that children bring home notes from school saying they have bumped their head. Treatment is removing a section of the skull to allow the swelling to expand outwards and relieve pressure on the brain.