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  • Hey everyone!

    I was wondering if any of you would know the effects it would have on the body to have electrocution as a form of torture for a few days?

    If a person had their arms chained so they were forced to stand for about 24-12 hours as well, what would happen to the body then?

    Could a person lose limbs in a fire?

    Also, My protagonist’s right arm was badly burned in a fire. it was scarred, and he lost most strength in it. he struggles to move it independently, and the skin hurts. is this realistic?

    Also, do you know of a good website to look these things up? I’m nervous about researching such things myself.

    Thank you so much!

    • Hi, I happen to be some studying burns in school, I am also a bit of a nerd and would love to give you a hand. First, a person can lose a limb due to fire, but most likely as the result of an amputation from burn complications such as infection, or compartment syndrome (essential circulation is cut off from the limb because the burn circles the limb) and/or serious tissue damage or death (called necrosis). My advice would be to really dissect the nature of this person’s burn and consider the following. One is the source of the burn and its potency (ie. Chemical, electrical, thermal (heat) or cold, etc.), and the next thing is the medium from which the burn comes (Is it liquid or gas or solid) and how it will interact with the body (splash, inhalation damage, where is the contact). How a substance behaves is going to affect how much damage is done, how the damage will look, and in how much time. Another thing to consider is the amount of damage has been done is it Superficial (first layer of skin= redness, pain), Partial Thickness (1st and 2nd layer of skin with variations in severity= very painful, moist, red/pink blistering/peeling of the skin, will scar and if very deep may require a skin graft) Full-thickness (Both skin layers and progressing into the underlying fat tissue= pain near the edges of burn where damage is still partial, no pain where skin is completely burned, white and leathery tissue and will require grafts) or Severe Full Thickness (Charring and burn into the muscle/bone, no sensation, needs grafting and may need amputation if there is no circulation).
      🙂 Okay, now. I see your source is fire, but I would be specific on the exact nature of the fire as best you can. Fire very easily spreads on clothing and hair and will likely spread on the body if hot enough so, in order to limit damage, there must be other factors involved. Was the fire on a sticky substance or a liquid? Did his arm get caught in something that caught fire? How hot was the fire? Where did it come from? When did it get put out? Was it only his arm? How much of his arm? Now for damage, I would say you are describing a full-thickness burn where the muscle has been damaged thus impairing mobility. If that is the case, what kind of medicine does your character have access to, because that is one of the worst burns a person can get and has a high risk of complications. Said person would likely need multiple skin grafts, careful dressings, plenty of fluid and electrolytes, and monitoring for a fair amount of time in a North American hospital. Other time periods, very likely, would amputate a burn that bad. What I am uncertain of is the realistic nature of his pain, as it would completely depend on whether or not any nerve regeneration would occur in the skin after such damage. If no nerves, no pain. But there is a definite possibility that the scar tissue could be chronically painful if there is some nerve regeneration, or if the damage produces something like a “phantom pain”. I would personally expect deeper pain in the muscle tissue as that damage would take longer to mend. That’s my thoughts. Hope it helps. For more info on burns, check out registerednursern website or on youtube. https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/burns.aspx looks like a good resource. Healthline is ok for basics.

    • Oh, and to the other questions, electrocution effects are going to depend entirely on the voltage, current, and amperage of electricity in use. It is also going to depend on the duration of direct electrical exposure. It is definitely going to affect the electrical conduction of the heart and muscles, likely causing injury over time. It is definitely very painful with pain increasing as amounts of electricity increase and would fatigue a person for sure. Electrical burns would probably occur and internal damage (burn damage) along the conduction route with duration and intensity. Very easy to cause a fatality, so ur torturer would have to be an electrical expert for sure and know how to inflict maximum pain with minimum damage. What is going to matter is the number of amps being forced through the body at once. (https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/how-many-volts-amps-kill-you-human.html) Then you can start assessing the damage over time. (look for resources from universities, professionals, databases with articles from peer-reviewed sources, science textbooks, and published encyclopedias (not wiki :))
      Now, if a person is forced to stand for an extended period of time one can probably go for a long while without too many major problems if there are no extra stressors such as weights or stretching going on. 24 hrs is really short of a time if I’m honest. The person would likely just be stiff, sore, and tired from lack of sleep. Nothing crazy. I suggest looking into the stocks and how long prisoners were kept in them: that will give you some good ideas. Now, there are a few ways things can play out on a more long-term basis. One is that when the muscles fatigue, they get stiff and kind of lock in position (if unable to move the legs) so long as the person is adamant that they won’t give up. At some point, the legs will get kind of numb and less painful. They may also start to shrink without use. What is going to take more time is recovery after the fact depending on the amount of time. Another way things could go is if the legs give out (due to injury, fatigue, no food etc.) That would be more dramatic. If the legs give out then full body weight is going to be on the arms and they will probably dislocate at some point. If the legs give out so much that the person cannot maintain any sort of upright position, that person will likely die of asphyxiation (like in crucifixion) because the diaphragm can’t work right when the body just hanging from the arms like that. However, it would take a good long while before that ever happened. Days upon days, probably, and with those other factors in play (injury, starvation etc.)

    • Thank you so much!

      • Thank you so much again! I’m not that medically inclined, and often don’t know where to start researching these topics!

        The nature of the fire that injured him is a great point, I really should’ve looked into that more than just him neglecting something in his house when in an argument.

        My story is set in a futuristic world, they have a chemical that can rapidly accelerate healing and cause the body to heal more than it could do on its own, but it is not only a difficult resource to get, but extremely expensive. The person who paid for my character’s recovery after the fire only paid for so much, including a bionic leg and a removeable, sleeve-like bionic arm that provides relief and compression to the burn.

        When you say over time, do you mean the duration of the torture?
        This character does experience getting punched a few times. Would that come in to play at all?
        This character also has only one leg, would that come in to play when he’s forced to stand or hang by his wrists?

      • Hey, no worries. So research can be as simple as google and youtube and as complex as a peer-reviewed article from a publication journal. the trick is just making sure you’ve got reliability so always look for information provided by universities, or professionals and just check those resources against each other for discrepancies. There’s lots of good stuff out there. I’d say start with keywords ie. thermal burns, burns from fire, burns for nursing or medicine or paramedics. Look at online study material for people in medical professions as those can give you tons of medical information on a wide variety of topics. Libraries are great too, see if you can find textbooks for pathophysiology (for anybody malfunction, injury or disease), fire safety, and firefighter training. And then really think through all the nitty-gritty details of what you want to achieve and how you have to get there logically. Those links and resource ideas I sent u previously will really help I think.

        Now, here’s what I know. With a full-thickness burn this guy will 100% need skin grafts cause his skin is gone, he’ll need fluid/electrolytes to keep stable, he’ll special burn dressings that are light so not to cut off circulation, he may need removal of severely burned tissues (debridment) and he’ll need major care precautions to prevent infection. With burns that circumvent a limb, that burned tissue can’t stretch and as fluid shifts from the bloodstream to the tissues it can build up pressure that can cut off circulation and cause any living tissue to die. So cuts in the burn tissue are made to allow for stretch as the fluid shifts. He will also have issues regulating tempature and have risks for other burn complications (another thing to research).

        With that in mind, you have a substance that is going to accelerate healing, so you will want to find some info on how long it takes for typical healing of a full-thickness burn. You also will want to know the percentage of surface area your character got burned (look into the Rule of Nines for burns) because that is going to affect healing and recovery time as well. (A person with burns like your character is going to need some rehabilitation for sure so that’s something to look at too.) Then decide how much of your futuristic drug is required to shorten that recovery time ie. does 10 oz reduce recovery time by 10 days, 20 days, a month? What tissues does it work best on, what tissues need more, does it work on all tissues or only some? (research bone, muscle, skin healing w burns) Is your drug able to limit scar tissue from forming? This is important because your guy sounds like he’s healed as much as he can which is still pretty impaired (and may be pretty standard for today’s burn outcomes *yay, more research to look at*), so that means your drug has some limits (or maybe some skimping on the measure was done by the pharmacy or doctor or drug company so said entity could make some side money or something because it’s so valuable.)
        Details you know are going to improve how you come at the story, even if you never tell all of them to the audience. One other thing, make sure the guy doesn’t use that bionic arm until he’s healed and in rehab because any compression on an unhealed burn is very bad for circulation and high risk for compartment syndrome.

        Okay, on to torture…. yeah, the duration of the torture is what I mean. Time, repetition and amperage are likely going to be the cause of damage with electricity.
        With being punched, there may be more tissue damage in those areas from electricity because there was already previous damage there, but I’m not sure. Since your guy only has one leg, he could be better or worse depending on his physical condition. That leg has to compensate for the loss of the other and can be stronger if he is in an alright condition, however, he can’t rest that leg either. He’s probably not going to be a lot different than a whole person over a short time, but the long haul will probably affect him faster. I should also mention that death by asphyxiation is going to depend on arm position. If they are straight above him, he probably won’t die. I was thinking if they were spread wide like a starfish. Yeah, do some searching on that stuff, just to verify what I say cause I could be wrong cause I’m just a student and a nerd so not quite a pro stuff yet.

      • Gee, your character is gonna need some serious therapy for all that trauma and PTSD. 🙂

      • Thank you so much!!!
        Yeah… this character is really messed up… I love writing him, and I am giving him a happy ending (as happy as it could end) but still… he’s not ok 😬. He really needs a therapist.

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