Penetrating Abdominal Trauma; an Overview of Recent Turmoil in Kashmir Valley

We present a review article, an overview of abdominal trauma, Penetrating in nature that typically involves abdominal cavity by pellet guns, gunshot injury and tear gas shell injuries mostly. This article is in reference to the current crisis that cropped up in Kashmir being a Conflict Zone. The recent warfare resulted into different kinds of traumas; Which were received at our centre at government medical college, SMHS and its associated hospitals. Our hospital, situated in the centre of Kashmir, being a tertiary care hospital; major trauma centre is always apt to receive such traumas for management. The minor traumas were also received by different districts and sub district hospitals across the valley. The hospital is equipped with a well structured triage centre where patients are received at the first instance and the ABC of trauma is being instituted in the golden hour. We, at department of general surgery purely received abdominal traumas for further management .The current turmoil in Kashmir valley resulted in many deaths and different types of traumatic injuries like neurosurgical, musculoskeletal, orthopedic, ophthalmological, cardiovascular and on top of that abdominal trauma. The peculiarity of this kind of trauma was high preponderance of pellet injuries received by our department of ophthalmology ranging in thousands in figures which were managed by the concerned department. Next to that abdominal trauma was soon to rank on number two with bullets and pellets. However, we too received trauma injuries caused by other than the firearm and war weaponry gadgets. It is proper to mention here that a good number of cases were received by the department of surgery wherein the injuries were inflicted on the assailants by batons, physical torture, and stone pelting. Most of these injuries were not minor in nature and good number of them fell in the surgical intervention while as others were managed in the hospital for a long period by conservative management.