A casualty is a person who is the victim of an accident, injury, or trauma. The word casualties is most often used by the media to describe deaths and injuries resulting from wars or disasters. Among the general public, casualties is sometimes misunderstood to be the same thing as fatalities (deaths), but non-fatal injuries are also casualties. In medicine, a trauma patient has suffered serious and life-threatening physical injury resulting in secondary complications such as shock, respiratory failure and death. ... The United States detonated an atomic bomb over Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. ...

In military usage, casualties usually has a more specific meaning, and refers to all persons lost to active military service, which includes those killed in action, killed by disease, disabled by physical or mental injuries, captured, deserted, and missing. Less serious wounds that do not prevent a person from fighting are usually not counted as casualties. The sum of casualties is known as the casualty count. Militaries use the term killed in action (KIA) as a casualty classification. ... Geneva Convention definition A prisoner of war (POW) is a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... MIA is a three-letter acronym that is most commonly used to designate a combatant who is Missing In Action, and has not yet returned or otherwise been accounted for as either dead (KIA) or a prisoner of war (POW). ...

Before World War II, deaths by disease usually outnumbered deaths in combat. Historically, 20-30% of those hit in combat died while the rest survived. That is the ratio of wounded to killed was about 3-1. Combatants Allies: Soviet Union United States United Kingdom France and others Axis Powers: Germany Japan Italy and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II, also known as the...

Reference

• Albert G. Love, War Casualties (1931) online by a Lt. Colonel, Medical Corps, U.S. Army

See also

• Collateral damage
• Civilian casualties
• Patient