12/09/2025
I’ve been getting asked a fair bit about yesterday’s shooting of Charlie Kirk, largely about whether it was survivable or not.
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After watching the initial clip it was pretty clear the likelihood of surviving this was essentially nil.
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There’s two things that stand out for me,
1. the immediate decorticate response (posturing), showing massive vascular and (likely) Central Nervous System damage and,
2. the obvious vascular damage and massive haemorrhage.
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We don’t get to pick and choose, as providers of initial care and assessment, if we should or shouldn’t render aid, within reason, but we must also be realistic about survivability and understanding what is happening in my humble opinion is also important.
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With regards to the mechanism, here’s many factors when dealing with gunshot wounds, projectile type (civilian ammunition has significantly more devastating terminal ballistics), weight, velocity, angle and so on, the reality is though as mentioned by podcast recently, penetrating neck trauma is a nightmare to deal with, especially when the mechanism is high velocity ballistic penetrating trauma.
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Looking at the anatomy of the neck you can easily see why it’s as such, densely clustered critical vascular, neurological and respiratory aspects not to mention the oesophagus.
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Again, the chance of survival is essentially in the negatives.
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Hopefully this helps explain to the layman what’s happening here.
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Regarding the event, Mr. Kirk and his assassination/murder I genuinely feel for his family who were apparently present.
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There’s really no winners in these events, like many others involving acts of violence.
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