Iraq death rate lower, but wounds are worse (12/10/04)

Iraq death rate lower, but wounds are worse
By Raja Mishra The Boston Globe
Friday, December 10, 2004

Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.

The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.

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