Research of less-than-desirable topics (wounds, wound complications, etc.)
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Have fun torturing your characters! XD
I will, don’t worry! This is only the backstory…
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
@skylarynn Hello hello! Took me a while to pop back on here – I don’t have notifications turned on and I only pop on once in a while when I remember to and have time :))
I agree with @rose-colored-fancy about the longsword thing. And I believe her take on the honey application is also accurate, though Jonathan would be the person to say for sure. He might be around tomorrow, I’ll poke him in this direction!
“Enough! Be quiet! I can’t hear myself think! I can’t hear my teeth chatter!"
Hi guys 🙂 this looks like a group I could really use haha. Would you guys know anything about the immediate reaction of people after getting stab wounds or shot? Is pain felt straight away or how exactly does it work? It still is something that confuses me 🙁
I certainly don’t know from experience, but I think it can be different depending on the situation. If adrenaline is running hard enough, some people can get wounded without knowing they are wounded – then there is also different pain tolerances where some people scream bloody-murder at a paper cut, while others can break a bone without yelping.
I remember when I cut my hand open from slipping and breaking four glass cups, it didn’t really start hurting until my dad got me in the car. I was young, and the shock of what happened and the blood kept the pain from registering in my brain. I remember calmly calling out, “Dad?” even though I was freaking out inside. But then, there are times when the pain is immediate.
So some factors that I think might effect it
– experience
– physical fitness
– training
– mental fortitude
– expectancy of pain
– shock
– adrenaline
– awareness or how awake someone is
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried. ~ G.K.C.
Would you guys know anything about the immediate reaction of people after getting stab wounds or shot? Is pain felt straight away or how exactly does it work?
Fair warning, I’ve never gotten either stabbed or shot, but I do have a worrying tendency to enjoy dangerous sports, so I have an unfortunate amount of experience with life-threatening situations XD (And blunt force trauma, mostly from being bucked into fences XD (If I had a nickel for every time a horse threw me into a fence, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice XD))
I’m going to agree with @jared-williams
If adrenaline is running hard enough, some people can get wounded without knowing they are wounded – then there is also different pain tolerances where some people scream bloody-murder at a paper cut, while others can break a bone without yelping.
Adrenaline makes all the difference. I’ve gotten hurt without even realizing it that way. One of the notable fence times I scraped open my entire arm and didn’t realize it until five minutes later when someone pointed it out.
That’s also why minor injuries like paper-cuts and stubbing your toe seem to hurt worse XD
I’m going to try to describe the things I usually use in fight scenes 😀
You can actually feel the adrenaline coming, and it feels weird XD It’s like this quick hot flush and then a kind of numbness. It doesn’t last long, as soon as the situation is over it starts wearing away, which means you start trembling, often you tear up or just outright cry, and if it lasted long enough you get nausea and a really bad headache that can last for hours. The aftereffects of a dangerous situation are worse than the situation itself, imo. If it didn’t last a long time, you can push through it but it’s not fun.
If you’re in a dangerous situation, you’re not inventive. You can think surprisingly clearly. It feels like time slowing down, you have very clear and concise thoughts, and often you can plan pretty well. But, inventiveness goes out the window, if the situation is bad enough. Your mind will jump to whatever you’ve practiced the most and do that. So, you’ll probably be able to do the right things if you’re prepared. Like, my horse slipped once and we both went down. I didn’t even feel it coming but at that moment I remembered enough to know to kick off my stirrups and roll away from the horse. (Surprisingly, everything was fine, we were both mostly confused XD)
As for pain, you’ll often have very clear thoughts even when you know it’s coming. I’ve seldom seen a character think: “Huh, I just got stabbed. That’s really bad and I’m going to die.” in a very calm way, but that’s the most likely reaction XD
The few times I’ve gotten badly injured (this specific instance my horse bucked me into a wooden fence and I badly bruised my leg) There was a blank space of a few seconds before the pain actually hit. There’s just numbness and then it all comes at once, then starts subsiding. (That thing that you see static when in bad enough pain is apparently a thing XD)
At HEMA, I learned that during fights, that exact time before the pain hits is pretty dangerous. If you were to hypothetically wound your opponent fatally, they’re not going to instantaneously drop down dead. They’re probably not even going to feel it for a few seconds. So, even if you technically already killed them, they’re going to finish their attack, and maybe even manage another one. Too many people relax because they think they’ve won, and then they get wounded too.
That was very detailed, but I hope it answers your question some!
Good luck stabbing your characters 😀
Without darkness, there is no light. If there was no nighttime, would the stars be as bright?
Would you guys know anything about the immediate reaction of people after getting stab wounds or shot?
Fatally or not fatally?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore!"
https://silverpenstrokes.wordpress.comAND SO I RETURN FROM DEEP CRYOSTASIS.
So, a background in weaponry:
As @rose-colored-fancy pointed out, a longsword is not a heavy weapon. A typical arming sword, or your classic one-handed sword, about 2-3 feet in length, would weigh in around 1-1.2 kilograms, or 2-2.5 pounds. This is the definitive “sword” of the Early and High Middle Ages (600-1000 / 1000-1300 AD). These are generally double-edged, with a relatively broad blade and a tapering point, generally good for both cutting and thrusting and handy in close quarters, the sidearm of choice of both knights and well-to-do or professional foot soldiers, typically in combination with a shield.
Now a proper *longsword* is a two-handed weapon of 4-5 feet in length, around 3-5 lbs, and the definitions and characteristics of these vary immensely, but they are typical of the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500) and coincide with the emergence of plate armor as the standard for knightly protection, with cheaper piece-meal plate armor pieces eventually becoming common-place among footsoldiers as well. Longswords would come to have a more defined point to better deal with the improved armor of the period by targeting weakpoints at the joints and gaps in armor, but retain the slashing edge for use against lightly armored opponent.
Now, the injury:
Like Rose stated, this is more likely to come out as bad bruising than an actual gash – at worst, a superficial gash across the back. A thrown sword simply does not have the momentum to cause serious injury unless it lands point-first, or it hits a toddler with more fragile bones and skin. Now, if you want some serious scarring / permanent injury what you could do is change the thrown sword to, say, someone practicing with their sword trips, stumbles, or has their weapon parried and swings wildly while your MC is nearby with his back turned, and accidentally lays open his back with a tip slice. Because a human being is attached to the other end of the weapon, the sword would be less likely to bounce back; momentum carries into the swing, and your MC is on the ground writhing in pain.
Treatment:
Honey was a commonly known means of preventing wound infection, while other materials ranging from clean river clay to ground shellfish and cobwebs were used for dressings and poultices. Medieval medicine is more complex than the Hollywood / Monty Python stereotypes, and physicians were quite aware of the need to keep wounds clean and covered. As mentioned above, sutures were well known, and an individual of high status such as a knight or a higher lord could generally be assured of competent care, especially if the wound was received in a relatively safe environment as opposed to in the midst of a siege.
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
So glad to see you again! And thanks for your answer.
Another question: if someone were stabbed in the back with a stiletto [dagger], where would the best place be for the stab to be survivable and how long would recovery be?
Thanks!
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
I’ll try not to repeat from our fellow contributors. Adrenaline is a massive component of pain sensation in severe injuries – people have taken dozens of rounds from handguns and not dropped till minutes later or until a fatal shot completely put them out of commission, and soldiers have sometimes fought on with missing limbs or innumerable injuries.
As to how long someone can survive an injury – location, location, location. Any damage directly to the heart will quickly result in cardiac tissue death, massive internal bleeding, and loss of consciousness within a minute or less depending on the severity of the damage. Likewise damage to the spinal cord will cause paralysis below the level of the injury. Interestingly, brain damage does not always necessarily result in death. In the case of Phineas Gage, he had his entire frontal lobe explosively removed when a blasting charge went off and went a two foot long steel rod shooting through the floor of his his jaw and directly through his frontal lobe, exiting the top of his head. He survived the injury for many years afterwards, though he had difficulties in managing his personal life and finances, and suffered significant changes in personality; he no longer liked the company of other people, instead preferring to keep horses. Now, damage to the brainstem and general core of the brain will result in immediate loss of vital functions, but people can survive a remarkable amount of damage to the brain without necessarily suffering clinical death, although their quality of life post-trauma will vary wildly depending on the region of the brain injured and the extent of damage, as well as age; children under the age of 8 can adapt to as much as losing an entire hemisphere of their brain. There’s a famous case of a girl treated by Ben Carson (neurosurgeon) who had a total hemispherectomy, and went on to earn a master’s in speech pathology and raise a family of her own. With only half her brain still in her skull (I don’t know what they filled the other half with.)
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
So, you’re probably aware of this, being stabbed in the back is not healthy. The torso in general doesn’t have a lot of “good” places where the injury would not be too severe or long lasting. It may be counter intuitive, but the best place would be on the victim’s right side and upper back, piercing the lung. Particularly since you mentioned the blade in question is a stiletto – a piercing dagger with a thin blade and straight, sometimes unsharpened edge. This is most likely to produce a relatively small puncture wound, reducing (slightly) the change of pneumothorax – where the thoracic cavity which contains the lungs and heart fills with air or fluid outside of the lungs, causing lung collapse. Even if the lung does collapse, this can be rectified by puncturing the thoracic cavity with a straw, allowing air and fluid (blood or interstitial fluid) to flow out of the thoracic cavity, allowing the injured lung to expand normally again.
While not an immediately fatal wound, the victim would need medical assistance within an hour to treat the above described pneumothorax before both lungs collapse. However, assuming they do receive some competent help to stop the bleeding and keep them from drowning in their own blood, they actually have a much better long-term prognosis than the victim of a stomach or intestinal stab wound. A stab, even a small puncture to either the liver, gallbladder, stomach, or intestines will cause the leakage of bile, stomach juices, and/or intestinal juices containing acid, bacteria, and stool into the peritoneal cavity (abdomen). While not immediately fatal – in fact the victim might carry on normally for some hours, or even appear to recover by the end of the day, infection and continuing tissue damage from acid seepage will spell their doom within a few days to weeks. Without antibiotics, blood transfusions, or a gifted surgeon to suture up the damaged organs, this guy is a gonner. A stab to the intestines has a slim chance of missing most of the colon, and they could end up with a purely muscular injury, but that is highly unlikely.
In recovery, the patient would need to remain laying on their back or right side while sitting up in bed, to prevent the lung from filling with fluid as well as to prevent the collapse of the other lung due to pressure from fluid build-up. I am uncertain at present if medieval surgeons would know to puncture the thoracic cavity to resolve a collapsed lung, but I can look it up in the morning. The patient would probably be abed for a month, and then light activity only for another 2-4 weeks.
But if the dagger is coated in poo, then they’re kinda dead no matter where they get stabbed. You don’t need exotic poisons when good old sepsis and pneumonia will do the trick.
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
*Stumbles in wondering if this thread was still being used for its original purpose*
*Decides it is*
Um, hi… I was, sorta wondering if anyone knows what it feels like being, uh, drunk? 😂
I need to know for one of the novels I’m working on, but it’s not something I want to look up or ask my family, lol
But if the dagger is coated in poo, then they’re kinda dead no matter where they get stabbed. You don’t need exotic poisons when good old sepsis and pneumonia will do the trick.
Ah, very good to know, @the-inkspiller
We somehow have not talked in all the time I’ve been on SE, but I know more about you than I should. I’m Erynne, btw, hi. *awkwardly salutes for no reason*
Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you ever know who would love the person you hide.
@erynne Howdy! Nice of ya to stop by.
So, it’s been a while since I drank – I quit a couple months ago, as alcohol was just making me depressed, less productive, and draining my wallet – I had stopped drinking for fun, and had by that point just been drinking as a crutch for mental pain. But that’s its own story.
I cannot say I’ve been black out drunk. I’ve never been so drunk as to not be able to remember at least some of what happened while I was intoxicated. I’ve also never drank besides with friends or at home, or been so drunk as to be unable to get home – if I was, I waited until I was sober enough to drive. My first “really drunk” episode was with friends, all of whom had higher tolerance than I, so it wasn’t an overly negative experience. We were playing a strategy board game called Twilight Imperium, in which you command different alien races to victory through a variety of means. At one point, I began impersonating my chosen species, which were religiously fanatical militaristic mantis people fighting for their queen-mother-goddess, in a desperate last stand against another player, whose chosen race were “pacifist” scientists who had begun a campaign of mass-genocide :))).
But the general experience of being drunk can be roughly divided into two categories: “Happy Drunk” and “Bad Drunk”
In Happy Drunk, I felt like I had a quicker wit; I was more impulsive, but I felt funnier, able to make others laugh with my antics and my repartee. And as long as I drank enough water afterwards, I usually wouldn’t have too much of a headache, would be able to sleep well enough, and wouldn’t feel too bad of a hangover the next day (which is mostly a result of not drinking enough water / peeing out the alcohol before you go to sleep).
Bad Drunk encompasses a lot of other situations. In depressive states, everything weighed on me like a ton of bricks – but the alcohol gave me a layer of apathy. I was aware that I was unhappy, that everything seemed terrible and I needed to do something about it – but I didn’t want to, or care enough to try to change things. It became easier to just numb myself with alcohol than to actually have to deal with the problem and the associated stress.
Being drunk in general makes you more impulsive, less inhibited – “in vino veritas”, as the Romans said. “In wine there is truth” – drunk people tend to say what they’re thinking without as much regard for whether they SHOULD. When people say stupid things while drunk, they are speaking from their inner thoughts. They might regret saying those things afterwards and make excuses, but they are often unfortunately honest, for better and usually for worse. The same applies to dumb decisions, like fighting the bouncer, kissing a fire hydrant, or other activities which are inadvisable even while sober.
Being drunk also severely impairs your coordination. It really is hard to walk in a straight line. Every physical movement becomes very thoughtful – mostly because you’re aware that if you don’t carefully plan every movement, you’re going to trip on yourself or knock something over. Your body tends to recruit more muscle power than it needs for every action, and is slow to stop or start – your reaction times slow, and your peripheral vision just kind of gets ignored. You can’t see or perceive as much – it becomes figuratively hazy; although your vision doesn’t actually change, your brain’s ability to process information declines significantly.
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
Could a drowning victim be resuscitated in medieval/renaissance times, and how did they handle hypothermia?
The character [a 15yo boy] fell through the ice of a frozen lake at night in the dead of winter and was able to find his way out of the ice before he passed out, but someone else managed to dive in, pull him out of the water and revive him. Is this plausible?
"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
Yes! Midwives have known for thousands of years “the kiss of life” to revive newborns who weren’t breathing well on birth. While some overly academic physicians might have “interesting” ideas about resuscitation (such as covering the body in hot coals or pouring hot tea down the throat), your average barber surgeon / village healer would know some fundamentals of resuscitation. The kiss of life was fairly well known – being that much of medieval European society had heard about the breath of life in Genesis, it’s not a far stretch to try and give a breath of your own to someone not breathing. The medieval Persians in 1400 had developed a technique not dissimilar to CPR, with regulated breaths and chest compressions, but it’s unknown if their technique spread to Europe; ironically, as the Middle Ages came to a close and scientific thought became pre-eminent in the Renaissance, Early Modern period and the Enlightenment, medical practitioners became even more intolerant of outside ideas than their medieval forebears and ignorant of the fundamentals of medical care that their predecessors had taken for granted, like sanitation, clean bandages, clean surgical instruments, and herbal medicine.
So a big question here is – does your boy actually have a pulse? It sounds like he was able to swim his way out of the water before losing consciousness, so I’ll hazard that his heart is still beating and he is not in cardiac arrest. This simplifies things, as it’s a bit of a crapshoot whether medieval medicine understood chest compressions. Midwives might well have known it from their work in reviving newborns, but the academic medical establishment didn’t bother writing down the old wisdom of village healers, wise women, and witches (though they only really started making a stink about witchcraft after the Middle Ages had ended and the Renaissance begun in the late 1400s through the 1600s).
So – the medieval process for reviving a drowning victim and handling hypothermia. A well salted sailor or a midwife / healer in a coastal or lakeside town would probably be well versed in saving drowning victims, and pretty much everyone knows what to do with hypothermia. We’ll talk about the hypothermia first since it’s the simplest. At a minimum, everyone to lives in Northern Europe would know to bring him in by the fire, dry him off and wrap him up warm, and feed him hot soup as fast as he’ll drink it. A healer or a more motherly type might wrap his extremities in hot compresses and/or massage them to encourage circulation, especially in cases of obvious frostbite. If he were in a culture / country that resembles say, Finland or Russia, they might take him to a sauna if they have one nearby (there are a lot of saunas in Finland, it’s not a luxury of the rich, it’s a national pastime up there), which would do wonders for rewarming his whole body quickly, although because hypothermia and/or frostbite numbs your skin, he might not know if the steam is too hot, and so could incur burns that way.
[If you want to know more about frostbite, let me know and I’ll do a write-up on that too]
Now, drowning resuscitation:
If our boy still has a pulse, then the main thing he needs is rescue breaths and stimulation. A healer familiar with drownings might know something like the Heimlich maneuver (though they certainly wouldn’t call it that), and as I said above, they would know about giving the breath of life. So our boy would probably be given rescue breaths, perhaps stood up / picked up and shaken, or laid on his side and his back hammered on to encourage any airway obstructions to flow out of his mouth.
So, I hope that overly long and exhaustive answer was helpful!
Non nobis Domine, sed nomini, Tuo da gloriam.
Thank you, that answer was wonderful.
Next question is might he get pneumonia from the experience and how would they handle that?"Remember, you go nowhere by accident. Wherever you go, God is sending you." - Rev. Peter R. Hale
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