Alexander Kuskoff inquest: The ex-scientist would most likely have survived if he was only shot by police once, instead of twice
ALEXANDER Kuskoff — who was fatally shot by police with hollow-point bullets banned in warzones — would have most likely survived if he was only shot once, an inquest has heard.
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ALEXANDER Kuskoff — who was fatally shot by police with hollow-point bullets banned in warzones — would have most likely survived if he was only shot once, an inquest has heard.
On Thursday, senior forensic pathologist Dr John Gilbert told Deputy State Coroner Anthony Schapel that Kuskoff was hit with two bullets during a stand-off with police at his Elwomple farm on September 16, 2015.
“The aim of this projectile is that it fragments quickly when it hits human flesh and causes massive injuries,” he said.
The inquest has previously heard he was shot by a STAR Group officer wearing night-vision goggles from a distance of 139m.
Dr Gilbert said the first bullet most likely hit his forearm — creating a laceration 13cm by 7cm — and then re-entering his body through the chest.
He said a fragment of the bullet caused a laceration to the left lung and allowed his chest to fill with blood.
“The most serious injury was to the lung,” he said.
He told the inquest that if treated in a timely manner, his chances of survival would have been good.
“If he’d been treated by paramedics shortly after the injury, stabilised, and MedStar came to scoop him up and take him to a major hospital, like the Royal Adelaide Hospital, I think it would have been a survivable injury,” he said.
But he said the force of the first bullet must have spun Mr Kuskoff — who was suffering delusions and psychosis — around and the second bullet hit him in the back.
Dr Gilbert said it damaged his kidney and liver, narrowly missed his heart and came to rest against his sternum.
But he said the fatal element from the second bullet was internal blood loss.
Kuskoff — a 50-year-old former industrial chemist — fired a number of shots into the air after making repeated rambling calls to police in which he declared his farm as the “state of Elwomple” and himself as the tsar.
Last week, counsel assisting the Coroner, Andrew Harris QC, told the inquest STAR Group police were called to assist uniformed officers who Mr Kuskoff had threatened to shoot if they entered his property, which he claimed would have been a declaration of war.
Mr Harris said the STAR Group officer who fired the shots, identified only by the initials DA, said he fired three shots because he feared for his life and that of a colleague positioned nearby.
Mr Harris said the court would need to consider whether the intention of the sniper was to kill Mr Kuskoff.
Hollow-point bullets were banned in warfare by The Hague Convention of 1899, but are still used by police in many countries and the US Army, which did not sign the convention.
The inquest heard Mr Kuskoff previously worked as an industrial chemist and had likely suffered undiagnosed mental illness for some years. His health had declined after the deaths of his parents in 2012.
