Definition of polytrauma

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polytrauma
noun

(medicine) A coinage by US military medical personnel to describe the multiple, extreme, totally incapacitating complex of traumatic injuries they see on individual US servicemen suffered in the course of the aftermath of the Iraq War, a multiplicity of wounds so severe that they would have been fatal in previous wars. These generally start with multiple, severe shrapnel injuries leading to multiple amputations, loss of normal bodily function, brain damage and partial-to-full paralysis. These are the kinds of injuries not even big city trauma centers accustomed to gang war shootouts ever encounters.

Etymology: poly, "many, much" + trauma

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