Why do victims “sustain” injuries?

In the phrase sustain an injury, the sense of the verb strikes me as out of line with its other senses, most of which can be replaced with either support or continue. Can someone suggest a chain of metaphor by which this usage arose?

I would blame it on TV news, but Wiktionary cites an example in Shakespeare.

Solution 1:

It comes from the sense of suffer, and surely you can see how someone would suffer an injury. From Etymonline:

c. 1300, "give support to," from stem of Old French sostenir "hold up, bear; suffer, endure" (13c.), from Latin sustinere "hold up, hold upright; furnish with means of support; bear, undergo, endure," from assimilated form of sub "up from below" (see sub-) + tenere "to hold," from PIE root **ten*- "to stretch." Meaning "continue, keep up" (an action, etc.) is from early 14c.