A wound is a break in the continuity of the skin, the break caused by violence or trauma to the tissue.

Types of wounds include abrasions, punctures, perforations, and lacerations. A laceration, which is our concern here, is a torn, jagged cut that has gone through the skin tissues and the blood vessels. Such a wound may have been made by a blunt instrument such as the fragments of a shell.

A laceration may be very dirty and require cleaning. If only the epidermis layer of skin is involved, there will be no bleeding. If the dermis layer of skin is involved, there will be bleeding. A laceration may require wound closure and suturing. Look at the four major types of lacerations.

a. Sheer Laceration. This type of laceration is caused by a sharp object such as a knife blade or the edge of glass.

b. Tension Laceration. In a tension laceration, the skin strikes a flat surface, thus ripping because of the tissue stress caused by the impact. There is no bone directly below the region of the skin that is struck. Instead, there is contusion (bruising) of neighboring soft tissues. A tension laceration heals with more scarring than a sheered laceration.

c. Compression Laceration. A compression laceration occurs when the tissue is caught between a bone and an external hard surface. The skin bursts, often causing a stellate (star-shaped) patterned wound to occur. There is a marked degree of injury adjacent to the laceration itself. This type of laceration heals the most poorly and with the greatest degree of scarring.

d. Combined Laceration. Combined lacerations have the characteristics of both sheer and compression lacerations. An example of such an injury is the resultant injury when you walk into the corner of a desk and your hip bone hits the desk corner. If a laceration occurs, it will probably be a linear wound with wound edges that are crushed; in other words, a combined laceration.