When I look at this pic i see the obvious hole in his upper L chest but the rush job in cleaning all of the blood off of him. I thought for a minute it might have been lividity but then i noticed the swipe marks from cleaning.
The wound is above the heart (notice the nipple line) and appears to be right on the border of the breast plate.
Not knowing what made the wound but assuming a med to large cal firearm, not being able to view his back etc, I would say this was an entrance wound because:
This area of the chest is dense with lung tissue and most importantly, all of the ascending blood vessels such as aorta and superior vena cava. You rip one of those either from direct contact or over pressurization from the bullet tract and you are a goner. Then you have the rib cage, spinal column, and breast plate. Not that it isn't beyond reason, I just think there would be much more debris and tissue pulled to an exit wound, causing a "bulge" or a blow out where the debris exited the wound.
The edges of this wound are clean. no surrounding deformity. If he fell and died on his face, that could explain the blood all over the front of him.
To be honest, I am suspicious of the nice neat blood trail from the wound after all the other blood was cleaned up.
could this have been staged? Also, I cant tell what that is at the bottom of the hole were the blood starts. smudge mark? Photographer will know that you cant tell the difference between black ink and blood in his pic..
Yes I am a pessimist
If you look at the "doolin" photo, you can see what happens when you bleed out and it is contained within the body. He has a gross deformity to his right side, around the area of the scapula. I've seen that before and its blood held in side the body. He most likely died face up.
Id like to hear your thoughts on the soldier you think might have suffocated.
so tag, you're it!