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@irishcelticredflowercrown

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 😀