bel-ennui: your-boi-apropos: bel-ennui: any-wonder: bel-ennui: In case any one is interested in this
bel-ennui: your-boi-apropos: bel-ennui: any-wonder: bel-ennui: In case any one is interested in this info (HOO BOY MY DAY JOB IS SO HANDY SOMETIMES): If shot from up close, the heat of the bullet may cauterise the insert wound, which well then not bleed a lot. However, the chance that the bullet exits through the back is great, and the exit wound is going to be at least twice to thrice as big, and will bleed profusely. The rate of bloodloss depends on what type of blood vessel is damaged. Arteries will spew out blood. Veins will lose blood slower. Shot from afar, the bullet has less of a chance to exit on the other side (don’t take this as a word of law bc it will 100% depend on the type of gun). Bullets do A LOT of internal damage. They’re tearing and pushing aside a lot of tissue. The more tissue it has to go through, the more damage it does and the bigger the exit wound is. So, like, a shot through your thigh is going to have a bigger exit wound than a shot through your arm. Back to bellies: your abdomen DOES NOT like blood spilling in there. The peritonuem (this…flappy skin thing? that covers your abdominal organs) is sensitive and will react to the presence of blood, causing your muscles to tighten. Also: hypovolemic shock. This is when your body has a lack of circulating moisture/liquid substancs, in this case blood. It has various stages, and how quickly it develops depends on, again, if you’re losing blood from an artery or a vein. Symptoms of hypovolemic shock include: Paleness Thirst* Cold skin (especially extreminites) Tiredness & yawning Shivering (from being cold) Sweat (note: this is a once-only thing and once wiped away a person in hv shock will not continue sweating *DO NOT GIVE SOMEONE IN HV SHOCK ANYTHING TO DRINK, this will reactivate their digestive system and this is bad for two reasons: 1) it may cause them to throw up bc their stomach can’t handle anything, but their muscles are too weak to expunge anything so they will choke on their own puke, 2) reactivating their digestive system will send the precious little blood they have back to their stomach/digestive system instead of it being used to keep their heart, lungs and brain alive which…yeah. That also kills them quicker. As already hinted at above, a body in hv shock is shutting down and redirecting blood to the heart/brain/lungs. The skin is the first organ to have its blood redirected, hence why a person will go cold. It’s imperative NOT to actively try to warm someone in hv shock bc this will trick the body into thinking it should send blood back to the skin and. That’s a Big No. In the first stages of shock, someone can be perfectly alert, but as they lose more blood, they will grow colder, weaken to the point of not being able to stand upright/walk/hold onto something or someone, and will gradually lose their orientation and awareness. That last bit means they will be slower to react when spoken to and eventually may not respond at all, and sometimes may not make any sense either if/when they do respond. As an addendum, being shot in the abdomen is real shitty in terms of like how to help someone with that injury. Putting pressure on the wound is the best option bc you can’t use a tourniquet as you would with an extremity. A field medic may push combat gauze into the wound (be prepared for a lot of screaming on the patient’s part) but if you’re not trained for that sort of thing, keeping the pressure on is your best bet until a professional can help out. Also: if someone doesn’t have a radial pulse (wrist), they may still have a femoral pulse (groin area) or a carotid pulse (under the jaw). A bit more technical knowledge: when someone is in hv shock, their heart rate rises, their respiratory rate rises, and their blood pressure drops. A normal heart rate for a healthy adult tends to be between 60-90 beats per minute, a normal respiratory rate tends to be between 12-18, and a normal blood pressure is around the 120/80, though mine is regularly around the 110/75. A heart rate above the 100 is a sign of hypovolemic shock. Breathing above 29 inhales p/m is a sign something could be wrong with someone’s lungs (but someone shot in the abdomen is probably not going to have a respiratory rate above 29). And that is all I have for now! Corrections and additions are welcome, as are questions. What if they get stabbed instead of shot? Not much will be different tbh. The amount of internal damage depends on the type of weapon someone is stabbed with, but generally speaking the mechanisms will be the same, at least as far as abdomens are concerned. Of course, if someone is impaled or the stabbing weapon is left in place, someone will bleed out much slower, because the weapon is keeping the vessels at least partially shut. They will still bleed out, though, and go through the process of shock. Also, any blunt damage to to your abdomen can also lead to internal bleeding with the mechanisms mentioned above (think of: getting kicked, or a blast from an explosion). Internal bleeding is especially dangerous bc outside a hospital and without professional help, you cannot do anything to stop it. And unfortunately, the abdomen is one of the areas of the human body where we can lose a fatal amount of blood (others are: chest, pelvis, upper legs). Thank you, @bel-ennui for this every helpful information, but I have to ask…. What the fuck is your day job? At the risk of making this a rly long post: I’m…sort of an actress w very specific skills, i. e. I act out injuries/illnesses so that emergency responders/medical personnel can practice in as realistic a way as possible. And to do that, especially when it comes to more traumatic injuries like a gunshot, we need to have some basic knowledge of anatomy and traumatology. We also do our own sfx make-up. I basically have the same breadth of knowledge as like…a general practitioner. Except a little more specified. -- source link
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