It may be shown formally that one possible approach to evaluating the dynamic response of a multi-ply fiber composite plate to an impulsive point load is by integrating the response to a line load over all orientations of the load line. This is a computationally intensive exercise and as a preliminary step, it is instructive to consider the simpler generic problem of the dynamic response of a two-dimensional elastic medium to a point load. For a two-dimensional isotropic material, integration of the line load solutions may be performed analytically and leads, as is well known, to the Bessel function solution. For an isotropic material, analytic integration is not possible and it is necessary to carry out the integration numerically. The paper will report the results of the numerical integration for both the isotropic and anisotropic media, showing some of the contributions at a fixed location arising from the individual line loads. For any orientation of the line load, the contribution to the overall response is non-causal but complete integration leads to a properly casual solution. ©2000 American Institute of Physics.