Volume 11, Issue 1: Knife and Gunshot Wounds

Knife and Gunshot Wounds – no time to linger

You are working as a solo responder on a very busy twilight shift when the radio blares with a group message. “If there are any crews or cars available to provide P1 back-up please radio control.” You hit ‘clear’ and the radio tells you that you are backing up another solo responder to a patient who has attempted suicide using both a rifle and a knife – are you ready for this?

CPD Benefit

Knife and gun crime have the potential to affect all demographics and age groups. These incidents can range from small scale individual situations such as suicide and self-harm, domestic violence, accidental injury and occupational injury to larger scale gang warfare and terrorist incidents.

This article examines the mechanism of injury for both gunshot and knife wounds and highlights important considerations when diagnosing and assessing such injuries. It also gives practical management advice based on the key principles of applying good trauma care. This will enable you to improve both patient outcomes and ongoing investigation and management.

Assessment Answers

You can check your answers to the quiz by clicking the link below:

Standby CPD Vol 11. 1 References

Standby CPD Volume 10 & 11 – Assessment Answers