Stomach wounds and blood. Anyone?

[Hex]

Hi guys,

Um. So say you(*) were stabbed in the stomach with a knife (blade approx 4-5 inches long) and the weapon was immediately removed from the wound -- what would your blood do?

Also, I'm aware that it's not good for you, but it wouldn't cause instant death, would it?

Very grateful for any help with this. I've had to stop halfway through a Scene of Great Emotion and (probable) Bloodloss.

(*) Not you obviously. One.

 

[chrispenycate]

Through most of history I would be extremely unhappy; mixing gut products with blood has been a recipe for painful, drawn out death for a long time. (when you say stomach I assume this is not referring to the particular organ but the entire belly region?). As for the blood – well there are a couple of arteries going down there, and if you hit one of those it would spurt, but more likely it would just flow out, like a cut into a muscle. If the knife were sharp, and I was a bit overweight (if one could imagine such an occurrence) it might merely ooze out, from a nice straight stab without too much slash. You need a shallowish, fairly wide slash to get the intestines pouring out through the gap.

Point is, if the gut is ruptured you're dead even if you're not bleeding much, unless you're twentieth or twenty-first century.

 

[Writersblock]

While i luckily do not have any personal experience with stabbings i would say, no, it would not cause instant death.

If its just one stab the risk of death would more be along the lines of internal bleeding which might take days and/or infection (few blades/implements are clean, unless they have been sterilized right before use). as for infection severity i guess it would depend on amount of intestinal damage.

If multiple stabs death could occur very rapidly due to severe bloodloss.

 

[Vertigo]

I believe in general stomach wounds used to be the most dreaded of fighting wounds resulting in almost certain and very slow death. As Chrsipy says, unless you're unlucky there'll not be vast amounts of blood, but unless you are very lucky and managed not to have your actual intestine punctured then you're in for a very bad time of it followed by death.

 

[alchemist]

Hit something vascular like the liver and it could be a fairly quick death. Otherwise, as the others said, it'll be a slow death. The victim will need medical attention soon as that deep a wound won't heal itself.

 

[Mouse]

I had an MC stabbed right through the stomach once and out the other side. She was fine.*


*ok, she died. But she went on to achieve great things.

 

[Abernovo]

As above, it's not a nice scenario. Potentially fatal unless you're very lucky or have access to relatively modern medicine. If it punctures the gut, you've got automatic infection. Basically faecal matter mixing with blood and stomach. Puncturing the stomach sac is going to release acid - think ulcers on steroids for pain, plus the damage.

Hit a major organ or artery and you could bleed to death internally, possibly with little showing outside the body. At the same time, a little blood makes a lot of mess on the clothes and will spread on a floor, so it can look even worse.

 

[Hex]

Thanks, guys (and hi, Writersblock!)

So -- if there was blood splattering, death would be quite rapid? (are we talking minutes rapid or an hour or two?)

Otherwise we're looking at oozing and days of horrible suffering?

 

[alchemist]

I would guess an hour or two as you'd be unlikely to hit an artery major big enough to die in minutes (the aorta is far back and the renal arteries also.

That is a guess, though.

 

[hopewrites]

If you let it spurt itself out, yeah minutes. But most people are horrified at blood violently ejecting itself from their bodies and make some attempt to stop the flow. Pressure would give you time to verbalize** your last wishes (or deliver obsenities )
I had a biology teacher once tell me that a spurting femoral artery (the on in your inner thigh) will bleed out most humans (depending on mass it would take more or less time) in ten seconds.

**if your diaphragm got messed up this would be even harder. Lung punctures adding burbbling to speach. Ether way it'd be hard to hold pressure on your abdominal wound and shout. Deep inhalations pushing out more oozy stuff between fingers or saturating bandages faster.

 

[Hex]

That's perfect. Thank you

 

[Brian G Turner]

So far as I understand it, it's not blood loss that kills from a gut wound, but the complications arising from injury there - not least perforation of the bowel, slow internal bleeding, general bruising and swelling to muscles and organs which affects general organ functions - resulting in massive pain across the abdominal area as still working organs are shut down.

But, much depends upon the wound itself and what it affects. Whatever form it takes, it's likely to be very painful, though.

 

[Cathy M.]

Surprisingly I know someone who was unfortunately stabbed.
When they were stabbed the knife remained in place however I believe you may be able to work with the information.
Nothing spurted, it simply ran down and it ran down quickly. There was a lot of blood and it bled immediately. No instant death. Memory loss from shock, but wouldn't have lasted incredibly long if medical treatment hadn't been there immediately.
I hope that helped! And please dont worry, said friend has long since recovered and is doing quite well.

 

[Susan Boulton]

I remember reading an article about the American Civil War in it it mentioned the state of undress of many of the dead and how they seemed to have then made themselves as comfortable as possible. It seems that if they had a stomach wound, either from a bullet, sword, knife etc. They had pulled at their clothes to see how bad the wound was, then resigned themselves to their fate. It struck me as very surreal, as if by confirming that they were hit in the stomach they had known they were not going to survive.

 

[Vertigo]

SJAB, that is almost exactly my understanding of the expected prognosis of and reaction to a gut wound around that time. And it didn't take a doctor to make that prognosis. A soldier in the Civil War would have seen a lot of gut wounds and would know exactly what to expect.

 

[Boneman]

I had an MC stabbed right through the stomach once and out the other side. She was fine.*


*ok, she died. But she went on to achieve great things.

We definitely need a 'like' button! This started my day with a belly laugh...

Do you want them to die quickly? How much abdominal fat do they have? Puncture the stomach itself, the small or large intestine and they'll die slowly, most probably of septicaemia, without surgery. A five inch knife, if it went in all the way to the hilt could reach the abdominal aorta, and they'd die pretty rapidly as their abdomen filled with blood, pumped rapidly by a scared heart... Apparently, they'd feel incredibly cold, as their central heating system (blood) fails, and pass out quite soon.

 

[Mangara]

You'd die a horrific death of infection. Bowel contents in the abdominal cavity are not good. Even quicker if they hit a major vessel.

 

[Hex]

I need him to be badly injured so he's passing out, but not to die before he can be saved by a miraculous hand from above. Or something.

It sounds like it might work. Thanks