DoD says amputations reached wartime high

DoD says amputations reached wartime high
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 14, 2012 5:38:44 EDT
The number of U.S. troops who lost limbs reached a wartime high in 2011, according to data from the Defense Department, but along with the spike came advances in medicine and technology that have enabled troops with devastating wounds to survive and, in some cases, return to duty.

In 2011, 240 deployed troops had to have at least an arm or a leg amputated, compared with 205 in 2007, the height of the surge in Iraq, according to data published by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.

The increase in 2011 coincides with the surge of troops in Afghanistan, who often dismount on foot patrols in the country’s austere and rugged terrain.

Troops wounded in Afghanistan also have suffered the loss of multiple limbs — of the 187 service members with major limb loss in 2010, 72 of them lost more than one limb, according to the report from the Army’s Dismounted Complex Blast Injury Task Force.

That’s an increase from 2009, when of the 86 troops with major limb loss, 23 had multiple amputations, according to the task force’s report.

The “most dramatic changes” in the wounds coming out of Afghanistan were the increased number of troops with above-the-knee amputation of both legs, triple and quadruple amputations, and the associated genital injuries, the task force reported.
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