Boston Marathon Bombing Victims Suffer Another Injury: Hearing Loss

The Boston Marathon bombing victims suffered in many ways. Many people perished, and many survivors lost or had damage to limbs in the April 15, 2013, bombing. Over 100 suffered an ear injury or hearing loss. It has been discovered that people within 1,000 feet of either blast reported hearing loss, ringing in the ears, and imbalance. All of these are problems which persist today.

Heather Abbott is one of the survivors. When she works out, it’s difficult to determine that she wears a prosthetic because of the left leg she lost in the horrific bombings. She also suffered an invisible injury: hearing loss, and she stated the following according to CBS Evening News.

“I struggle to hear what people are saying. And sometimes I’ll ask them to repeat themselves so many times that I just pretend I’ve heard at a certain point… It’s interesting how much I wasn’t hearing that I didn’t realize.”

Many of the 100 survivors who suffered hearing loss are taking part in a three-year study at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. Dr. Alicia Quesnel, an otologic surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School and the lead researcher, notes that prior research focused solely on soldiers injured on the battlefield, not on civilians. She stated the following, according to CBS Evening News.

“This was, of course, in a crowded group of spectators who weren’t wearing headgear or helmets and so thinking about that in terms of blast mechanics, and how pressure waves ricochet off of buildings, surroundings are very important in terms of how much damage is actually done.”

Harvard Medical School researchers studied the extent of the ear injuries and hearing loss suffered by Boston Marathon bombing victims. The findings of their study was published on Friday in the journal Otology & Neurotology, according to the Washington Post.

The study looked at 94 adults and children. These were individuals who sought treatment at Boston-area hospitals and clinics in subsequent days or weeks. Most of them had good hearing quality prior to the blasts.

Unfortunately, 90 percent of the patients who were hospitalized for other injuries also had ruptured eardrums. Approximately 30 percent of the patients who didn’t have symptoms at first developed them within the last two years, and doctors are concerned that even more people will be coming forward in the future.

In 38 percent of the cases, the eardrum damage healed on its own. Some victims underwent surgery or other therapies to treat the damage. Others suffered permanent damage.

Heather Abbott wasn’t able to wear a hearing aid for a year after her ear drum ruptured because it needed to heal sufficiently for her to get hearing aids. Voices are now clearer and louder to her. She also hopes that this research helps advance the technology for hearing loss.

Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by a federal jury for the 2013 attacks at the Boston Marathon that left four people dead. Tsarnaev, along his older brother Tamerlan (who was killed after Dzhokhar drove over him while trying to ram into police), planted and detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Together, the pair injured more than 260 people and killed three, according to an article in the Inquisitr.

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