I don't understand--perhaps someone with more medical knowledge than I have can explain this tragedy to me. I can understand how a man shot in the leg could, perhaps, bleed to death immediately, but how would a leg wound kill three days later, in this day and age? What could have happened?
Sometimes when things are awful we seek explanations, as if that will make it better.
From what I read from various sources over the last two days, the Trooper took a high powered bullet in the femoral artery. He was airlifted and required at least 50 units of blood. The leg was amputated earlier today. He had been kept in a medically induced coma the entire time.
There are all sorts of complications of coma and surgery.
I deal with gunshot wounds to the extremities often. There are complications from losing too much blood, transfusion reactions, blood clots, fatty embolisms, contamination of the site, tissue toxins affecting the liver and heart, septicemia, and with the amputation the same complications compounded. The stress from the trauma and resulting surgeries can be too much. It amazes me that the success rate of military trauma surgeons is as high as it is.