Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The damage to the human body caused by firearms
CNN
With guns front and center in the news, I wanted to share what I have learned over the years about what bullets do to the human body and the challenge it is for surgeons to repair the damage.
Hoff had a way of explaining things that made them really stick, and that was particularly clear in his lecture called "GSW." Anyone who works in a hospital likely knows the acronym GSW stands for "gunshot wound," and the way Hoff wanted us to learn the topic was for us see the impact firsthand.
So on the last day of his class, we went to an outdoor gun range in Ann Arbor for our GSW lecture. There were handguns there, as well as rifles. In the distance, I saw several watermelons on top of old barrels that would serve as targets. After putting in his ear plugs and donning safety glasses, Hoff shot a watermelon with a handgun. I saw the bullet hit the watermelon but wasn't confident I saw the bullet exit. The watermelon was then brought to us for inspection.