Explosive devices have been a significant cause of injury in terrorist attacks and in conflict. The main
mechanism of the resulting injury is due to fragments energised by the blast wave; these fragments have been
found across different regions of the human body [1]. Injuries with high severity to the torso have been recorded
in suicide bombings against civilians [2-3], whereas this body region is largely protected in military personnel.
Predicting the probability of severe penetrating injuries is essential for improving emergency response,
medical services, and the design of large infrastructure in order to minimise the number of casualties and improve
their treatment alike. One way of predicting the penetrating injuries is to use human tissue surrogates. Currently,
tissue surrogates such as ballistic gelatine at 10% and 20% concentration are widely used to replicate penetrating
injuries to soft tissues. These have been shown to replicate penetrating injuries in porcine muscle [4]. There are
no tissue surrogates, however, which have been shown to allow for quantifying the probability of penetrating
injuries to the vital organs of the torso. This study aims to quantify the risk of severe injury to cardiac tissue and
determine a biofidelic tissue surrogate for it.