Overheard on the Web, and other Web links From The Herald's Research Editor
Friday, December 10, 2004
How they are injured
Here's a fascinating report on injuries suffered by our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan: Casualties of War: Notes from a Surgeon, in the New England Journal of Medicine. It has statistics on numbers of wounded, types of injuries, and discussion of whether care is sufficient, considering that at any time the military has somewhere from 60-100 surgeons in country. Fascinating stuff here, like this:
Surgeons also discovered a dismayingly high incidence of blinding injuries. Soldiers had been directed to wear eye protection, but they evidently found the issued goggles too ugly. As some soldiers put it, "They look like something a Florida senior citizen would wear." So the military bowed to fashion and switched to cooler-looking Wiley-brand ballistic eyewear. The rate of eye injuries has since decreased markedly.
Elisabeth (Liz) Donovan was a Herald librarian for 10 years, and Research Editor for 13 years. She came to The Herald in 1981, following several years at the
Washington Post. She started blogging in 2000, with a news research blog, followed by the blog at Herald.com in 2003. A frequent speaker and writer on news research, she was honored in 2004 by the
News Division of the Special Libraries Association for her contributions to
the field.
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