Glass Shard Research

Glass shard: a broken piece or fragment of glass 

Injuries caused by glass, present a mixture of irregular slash/stab and blunt trauma wounds, where shards of glass produced on impact may puncture the skin, and larger sections of the glass cause slash-type wounds. 

Surface-Level Cuts: Possibly the least severe broken glass injury suffered are surface-level cuts. These injuries simply tear or cut the skin and do not penetrate deeper into the body’s tissue. Typically, surface-level cuts require minimal treatment, including cleaning and possible stitches to stop the bleeding.

Deep-Level Lacerations: When sharp pieces of glass penetrate deep inside the skin, deep-level lacerations can result. These types of injuries can include cuts and wounds that penetrate through the skin, the underlying skin tissue and muscle fibers, all the way through to the bone. Deep-level lacerations are very dangerous for a variety of reasons, including permanent disfigurement.

Severed Limbs: If a shard of broken glass is large enough or sharp enough to penetrate the body almost all the way through, a severed limb can result. If even one shard of glass penetrates the body at an especially vulnerable location, it could lead to a severed artery which requires the affected limb to be amputated.

Bleeding to Death: If a shard of broken glass hits the arteries in the neck or any other part of the body that is especially vulnerable, an injury victim can bleed to death in a matter of minutes if medical help does not arrive quickly.

This is someone who has been cut by glass around a swimming pool, which is why the blood is this colour, and why the body is wet.

This cut is on someone's foot

Quite a lot of glass shard wounds are on the hand, whereby people are holding a glass object and it smashes, or breaks, etc.

After this initial stage of research, I now need to decide whether I am going to create a surface-level cut or a deep-level laceration, and I need to figure out the placement of the wound. I need to ensure that the surface is flat so that the piece can be seamless attached to the skin, but also so that it is in a realistic, believable place.

At this moment in time, I am thinking of having my wound either on the neck or hand... I think these are realistic placements because I am going to have the model either be bottled, or a glass smash while they were holding it. I think both of these placements will be viable because they have fairly flat surfaces, and are believable.

Web refences:
http://www.fortheinjured.com/auto-broken-glass-injuries.html#top
http://www.forensicmed.co.uk/wounds/sharp-force-trauma/glass-wounds/
http://www.roamingjones.com/its-all-g/