Connection between broken ribs and missing eyes

[amashilu]

I am sure someone on some forum (maybe even this one) has brought this up, but I don't recall reading anything about it.

High pressure blast waves can blow out the eyes, as well as break the ribs. If, for example, there was a high pressure blast wave and Lyuda and Zolo were positioned right in front of the blast and thus were hardest hit of the group members, this could explain both their rib injuries and their missing eyes.

AI notes damage to eyes:  "Globe Trauma (Eye Damage): Rupture of the eyeball or severe damage due to sudden compression."

[Senior Maldonado]

Looking at the traumas of the Ravine-4 hikers, we cannot avoid concept of high-pressure blast wave, brought to the spotlight by Boris Vozrozhdenniy. What is important, regarding fractures of the ribs observed for Luda and Semeyon, as well as skull crack observed for Thibo, Vozrozhdenniy offers mechanism of indirect impact from the blast. It was not the wave itself that crushed the bones. The wave threw the hikers on the stones in the creek, and the bones were crushed by the stones. The wave acted as a moving door of a giant press, while the stones acted as another, immobile door.

It's also important that the blast was not of a classic type, which is explosion of a bomb or a shell. For the classic blast we have abrupt and strong airfront, which can tear arms and legs, eardrums, etc. Russians offer the following illustration of a classic blast:



The blast, we can imagine for DPI, was of another type - volumetric explosion. A huge volume of gas burnt high in the air. This type of blast is illustrated by different picture:



Wave's strike from that 2nd type of a blast is not that strong, but I believe it's strong enough to damage eyes, so they do not keep long in place.

Additionally, I want to point that all speculations that when the hikers approached the ravine after leaving the tent, the ravine was full of snow, and they started to dig a cave, are groundless. The position of the flooring they made in the ravine indicates that there was little snow there, which allowed them to use the ravine as a natural shelter -- a trench, like many others where Semeyon used to hide himself during the War.

[amashilu]

Additionally, I want to point that all speculations that when the hikers approached the ravine after leaving the tent, the ravine was full of snow, and they started to dig a cave, are groundless. The position of the flooring they made in the ravine indicates that there was little snow there, which allowed them to use the ravine as a natural shelter -- a trench, like many others where Semeyon used to hide himself during the War.

Yes, it has long been a point of confusion how they managed to "dig" the den without tools, so this makes sense.

Also, I appreciate your looking to Semyon's war experience to explain some of the evidence; I have wondered many times why this is so ignored.

[sarapuk]

I am sure someone on some forum (maybe even this one) has brought this up, but I don't recall reading anything about it.

High pressure blast waves can blow out the eyes, as well as break the ribs. If, for example, there was a high pressure blast wave and Lyuda and Zolo were positioned right in front of the blast and thus were hardest hit of the group members, this could explain both their rib injuries and their missing eyes.

AI notes damage to eyes:  "Globe Trauma (Eye Damage): Rupture of the eyeball or severe damage due to sudden compression."

Are you familiar with what happens to people caught in a severe blast, as the sort you are suggesting? They lose their head and sometimes their arms and legs. The injuries are not conducive to such a blast. 

[GlennM]

Kolevatov, Zolotov and Dubinina had blunt force trauma type injuries. There was nothing in the area that pointed to a proximity blast. There were no boulders or cobbles mentioned. No blasted branches, no metal schrapnel. Nothing to suggest a proximity detonation. The remark about the eyes being sucked out of the head or popped within the head should occur in all R4 victims. A blast of that magnitude would flatten and denude trees. That didn't get reported. Being in a depression in the ground affords some protection. Nothing reported says the R4 nor IRZ were thrown.

The streambed was relarively shallow. The snow crust covering the R4 was thin. The snow cover at the mat much thicker. Nobody reported the snow above the mat appeared to be dug into. Ski pants and a sweater were laying about.but not used.

The R4 group may well have found or made a branch mat, but they were surely elsewhere when trouble happened. From,what we know, the cedar had fallen branches capable of making skull injuries. If Zolo and Lyuda were under the Yuris, or vice versa, chest injuries might happen from a fall from height. They might have crawled back to the mat but neve got to itr . Lyuda seems headed that way, the others just stretched out. Perhaps they could not get to the mat owing to a snow pile.

Seems odd to me that they move from a fire to a streambed. Sheltering from,wind or having,something to lean on seems reasonable, just not THAT reasonable. Another whole line of speculation would be threm getting hurt on the way from tent to cedar, but didnt get farther than the ravine two falling,forward, one backward, one not affected.

[Senior Maldonado]

Kolevatov, Zolotov and Dubinina had blunt force trauma type injuries.

Probably, Thibo, Zolotarev, and Dubinina are meant here, as those three had their bones crushed.

There was nothing in the area that pointed to a proximity blast.

Probabaly, Lev Ivanov would not have agreed. On seeing young trees touched by fire at the edge of the forest, he started looking for an epicenter of explosion. He failed to find one, which allowed his later fantasy of a targeted radioactive ray.

no metal schrapnel

It is hard to expect metal schrapnel, when a cloud of gas detonates, isn't it?

A blast of that magnitude would flatten and denude trees.

If I remember correctly, the Cedar tree was denuded a little bit. Some branches were broken at considerable height, where the hikers had no need to climb. Also, Teddy found a fallen tree and proved that it fell in 1959. And I have gut feeling that was not the only fallen tree in the area.

Nothing reported says the R4 nor IRZ were thrown.

Except Boris Vozrozhdenniy statement during his interrogation:
"Such an injury could have occurred if Thibo was thrown by a strong gust of wind, causing him to fall and hit his head on rocks, ice, etc. ... the nature of the injuries in Dubinina and Zolotarev is multiple rib fractures ... were caused by a significant force, similar to the force used on Thibo."

[SURI]

Ivanov would probably disagree with your conclusion.

Ivanov
„However, there were no traces of the explosion wave, Maslennikov and I carefully examined this.“

He followed different lead.

[GlennM]

SM This could be a case of smoke and mirrors. I notice that the response to my post was selective. The reply was based on second hand and heresay speculation. I find that  what couldn't be explained were ignored.
SU makes a valid point
Too it is curious that teams of locals, military and university students comb an area repeatedly and nobody says, a blast happened here. Nobody says a blast caused an avalanche, a tree fall, a cave in. No blast related mass disturbances.
The R4 group looked like they were napping, not ragdolls.