Feet, not fists cause more damage in fights

LONDON (Reuters) - Feet and not fists are the most dangerous bodily weapons and can even cause more damage than knives, according to research into violent assaults published on Thursday in the medical journal Injury Prevention.

While feet were used in just 7 percent of assaults, they were the body parts most likely to inflict serious injuries -- considerably more so than fists which caused 55.7 percent of all injuries, the paper "Non-Firearm Weapon Use And Injury Severity" showed.

The research showed that kicking led to more severe injuries than the use of sharp objects, including knives, bottles and glasses.

The report's authors concluded the government should consider taking steps to combat kicking during assaults. "This might be achieved through more severe criminal sanctions to deter kicking, and a public awareness campaign," they suggested.

More work was also needed to consider the impact of different types of footwear and any link between the severity of injuries.

While the paper said it was "noteworthy" that sharp objects were less likely to result in severe injuries than feet, blunt objects or other body parts, it did sound a note of caution.

The findings may reflect a failure in the data to discriminate between knives -- which can cause severe, penetrating trauma -- and broken glasses and bottles which may only produce comparatively superficial wounds, the academics warned.

The study was based on an assessment of nearly 25,000 patients treated in and around Cardiff, Wales between 1999 and 2005. All had been injured during violent attacks.

The study also revealed the peak age for sustaining injury was 47-year-old and not, as many might assume, among younger people.