Question:medium

A victim of a bomb blast sustains burns to the chest and face caused by the fireball and the heat of the explosion (not by the blast wave, flying fragments, or being thrown against a structure). This burn injury is best classified as which category of blast injury?

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Burns and inhalation effects are the 'everything-else' category of blast trauma.
Updated On: Jun 25, 2026
  • Quaternary blast injury
  • Primary blast injury
  • Secondary blast injury
  • Tertiary blast injury
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The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

Explosion trauma is grouped by causal mechanism into four tiers. Tier one (primary) reflects the pure over-pressure wave damaging air-filled structures: tympanic rupture, pulmonary barotrauma, and hollow-viscus perforation. Tier two (secondary) is penetrating trauma from projectiles and shrapnel. Tier three (tertiary) is blunt trauma from the body being hurled by the blast wind.

The fourth tier (quaternary) is the catch-all for every remaining explosion effect - flame and flash burns, toxic-gas and dust inhalation, crush injury, and worsening of chronic disease.

Facial and chest burns produced by the fireball and radiant heat of the detonation match the quaternary definition precisely, since they arise neither from the pressure wave, nor fragments, nor displacement.

\[\boxed{\text{Burns from a blast} = \text{Quaternary blast injury}}\]
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