Can a Coin Stop a Bullet

Can a Coin Stop a Bullet?

This was one of the rarest and craziest cases I have seen. It was a case of an unusual intermediate target in a multiple shooting case.

There is the old story of the soldier who carried a small Bible in his breast pocket, close to his heart. During a battle, an enemy bullet struck him in the chest, but the bullet lodged in the thick pages of the Bible and stopped short of piercing his heart. The story became a powerful symbol of both chance survival and the protective, life-saving power many attribute to faith.
In late 2022, I performed an autopsy on an adult male with multiple gunshot wounds to the body.

The cause of death was due to an execution-style gunshot wound through-and-through the head, from back-to-front. There were also multiple perforating gunshot wounds through-and-through the limbs, the chest and the abdomen.
Curiously, a R2-00 coin (South African currency) was located lodged superficially within one of the gunshot entrance wounds. A 9 mm projectile had struck a R2-00 coin within the deceased’s trouser pocket, which served as a secondary missile.

There was an atypical gunshot entrance wound located on the lateral aspect of the left thigh of the deceased. This atypical wound measured 2 cm in diameter and the wound edges were irregular. Within the central aspect of this wound was a malformed R2-00 coin (South African currency). The R2-00 had served as an unusual intermediate target (almost like the ‘bible’ in the previous metaphor).

Both the R2-00 coin and the 9 mm projectile had penetrated superficially into the gunshot entrance wound. Both the coin and the projectile were malformed. No major organs were damaged by either the R2-00 coin or the 9 mm projectile.

The purpose of this description is to sensitize the viewer to this rare case study.

References:

Jones AM. An unusual atypical gunshot wound. A coin as an intermediate target. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1987 Dec;8(4):338-41. doi: 10.1097/00000433-198712000-00015. PMID: 3434558.

Ryan Blumenthal and BA Kloppers. An Unusual Intermediate Target. 23rd Triennial Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences in Conjunction with the 26th Symposium of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society, held 20-24 November 2023 in Sydney, Australia. Poster Presentation. Wednesday 22nd November 2023. Poster 96. 12h45. Poster terminal 2.