Tamerlan Tsarnaev body had wounds from head to toe before he died in hospital, doctors say

Doctors have revealed details on Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s condition when he was hospitalized on Friday morning shortly before he died, having wounds from head to toe.

“Every region of his body had injuries [though] his legs and arms were intact,” doctors said about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s condition.

Watertown police chief Edward Deveau has also given the most detailed yet account of events on Friday, when Boston was gripped with fear as Boston Marathon suspects, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were being hunted down, after the FBI released photos of the men behind the attacks on Thursday night.

Violence broke out in the early morning hours Friday when police received reports of a robbery of a convenience store in Kendall Square near MIT and a Sean Collier, an MIT police officer, was shot multiple times.

Speaking to CNN following Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s capture, Edward Deveau said that a single officer was the first to encounter the two cars that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were driving, just before 1 a.m. Friday.

One of the vehicles was a Mercedes SUV the brothers had carjacked earlier that night.

Before the officer could call for backup, the two cars came to a stop and the brothers got out.

“They jump out of the car and unload on our police officer,” Edward Deveau said.

“They both came out shooting – shooting guns, handguns. He’s under direct fire, very close by. He has to jam it in reverse and try to get himself a little distance.”

Five others officers arrived on the scene in the middle of an intense shootout during which Edward Deveau says over 200 rounds were fired in 5-10 minutes.

The chief said that one of the suspected bombers lobbed an explosive at the officers, which later turned out to be a pressure cooker bomb like the ones used in the marathon attack Monday.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also allegedly threw other explosives at police, which Edward Deveau described as “very rough devices”.

Two of the bombs detonated and two did not.

The pressure-cooker bomb exploded, and the lid was found embedded in a nearby car, Edward Deveau said.

At one point, Tamerlan Tsarnaev came directly toward police, firing a gun at officers as he inched closer toward him, but his luck ran out along with his ammunition, allowing one of the officers to tackle him.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wounded but alive following a police gun battle when his younger brother ran him over with a car, possibly causing his death.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later.

An alleged autopsy photograph of Tamerlan Tsarnaev that was leaked Friday shows multiple gunshot wounds and a massive open gash that spans from the center of his chest to his back.

Another smaller gash is located right below the larger wound. His right shoulder and his face show signs of hemorrhaging.

Doctor David Schoenfeld, who was involved in treating Tamerlan Tsarnaev told the Associated Press he had injuries from head to toe and all limbs intact when he arrived at the hospital.

Dr. David Schoenfeld said 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was unconscious and had so many penetrating wounds when he arrived at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center early Friday that it isn’t clear which ones killed him, and a medical examiner will have to determine the cause of death.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s clothes had been cut off by emergency responders at the scene, so if he had been wearing a vest with explosives, he wasn’t by the time he arrived at the hospital, the doctor said.

“From head to toe, every region of his body had injuries,” Dr. David Schoenfeld said.

“His legs and arms were intact – he wasn’t blown into a million pieces” – but he lost a pulse and was in cardiac arrest, meaning his heart and circulation had stopped, so CPR, or cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, was started.

David Schoenfeld did not address the police assertion that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was run over by a car driven by his brother as he fled the gunfire.

The doctor said he couldn’t discuss specific treatments in the case except to say what is usually done in such circumstances, including putting a needle in the chest to relieve pressure that can damage blood vessels, and cutting open the chest and using rib-spreaders to let doctors drain blood in the sac around the heart that can put pressure on the heart and keep it from beating.

“Once you’ve done all of those things … if they don’t respond there’s really nothing you can do. You’ve exhausted the playbook,” he said.

After 15 minutes of unsuccessful treatment, doctors pronounced Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead at 1:35 a.m. on Friday.

His body was turned over to law enforcement for examination to determine the source of his injuries.

“We did everything we could to try to save his life,” Dr. David Schoenfeld said.

“There was some discussion in the emergency room about who it was. That discussion ended pretty quickly,” he said.

“It really doesn’t matter who the person is. We’re going to treat them as best we can.”