Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Medical Questions

This is topic Medical Questions - HELP in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

HELP! I'm trying to remember what organ is destroyed when the wound bleeds black. It's the wound Bruce Willis's character has in 6th Sense. Do any of you medical people out there know?

I also have some timing questions with this context: the wound is inflicted by a sword during combat:

1. How long until the person is incapacitated?
2. Would the adrenaline rush from being in battle give that person more time on her feet?
3. How long until bleed out/ the toxins in the body get too high and the person dies?

Thanks for everything.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

I don't know if I'd take M. Night Shyamalan's special effects as natural. That said, my understanding (totally non-medical)is that black blood is old blood (so the wound may have bled black symbolically because Bruce Willis' character had taken so long to learn he was dead).

Black bile is one of the four "humours" and is associated with melancholy, so something black and liquid had to have come out of a body when it was pierced at some time for the idea to have been so prevalent at one time.

I think I'd worry that the intestines had been perforated if black came out. That kind of wound is usually fatal because the contents of the intestines will infect the rest of the abdominal cavity fairly quickly (which is why a burst appendix is so dangerous).

Could the blood be magically black, from a magical weapon or from a curse, perhaps?

Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :

I once shot a deer with an arrow that passed all the way through. I recovered the arrow at the site of the shot, and the blood on it and on the ground was very dark, almost black. I'd never seen anything like it. When I recovered the deer, it turned out I'd hit her further back than I intended, and the arrow passed through the center of her liver--hence the color. Hopefully my experience with that will help you with your questions.

It took me 12 hours and the help of my dog to recover the animal after the shot--it had run more than 200 yards and hidden in a dense thicket prior to expiring. Based on the behavior of this deer at the shot and after, and my knowledge of the similarities and differences in the way deer and people react to wounds, here's what I'd say to your questions:

1. How long until the person is incapacitated?
The blood trail of the deer I shot showed that she started getting woozy after about 10 minutes and lay down. Something scared her from her resting place, and she ran 125 yards before collapsing. She collapsed perhaps 15 minutes after the shot, by my estimation.

A human wouldn't fare so well if stabbed or shot through the liver. Our blood doesn't clot as well, and we don't have the raw animal determination of, well, an animal. I'd guess a couple of minutes of strenuous activity would be the limit. Maybe 10 to 15 minutes of consciousness if laying still. More, if it's a small stab or handgun wound. Less, if it's a major stab or rifle wound.

2. Would the adrenaline rush from being in battle give that person more time on her feet?
My guess would be the adrenaline rush would help reach that few minutes noted above. Without it, most people would probably collapse from shock at impact.

3. How long until bleed out/ the toxins in the body get too high and the person dies?
Probably 10 to 15 minutes to unconsciousness. 15 minutes to a couple of hours to death.

All these guesses are educated in the sense that I've seen this happen to a large mammal, but approximate in the sense that the mammal in question was not human.

Posted by JoeMaz (Member # 8241) on :

Just a guess- Could it be blood that has not been oxygenated? Some veins look blue, others red. If that's the case, he might have been shot through a major vein or artery... I have no idea what I'm talking about

Posted by MartinV (Member # 5512) on :

Blood from human liver is also almost black so what Bruce Willis' character was going through was a liver shot.

In the movie The Jackal (ironically!) Bruce Willis shoots a woman through a sofa. He tells her that he got her in the liver and that she has about fifteen minutes left to live. Paramedics came while she was alive but could not save her.

Internal bleedings can be used for a very (melo)dramatic piece of the story

[This message has been edited by MartinV (edited December 08, 2008).]

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

Thank you.

I couldn't remember if it was the liver or kidneys. I probably should have said that in the original post. That's also the other movie I was thinking of but couldn't remember the name. He shot her so she'd have enough time to tell the person she was working for that he was the one to shoot her but the wound was irretrievably fatal.

Thanks for the time estimate J. Seems like the 5 or fewer minutes I have her on her feet would be plausable then.

This is why I LOVE this group.

Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :

It's kind of remarkable how long large mammals can live and function to some degree with serious wounds to vital organs. Once my brother shot a deer with a very powerful rifle. After the impact, she ran 60 yards before she died. When we were dressing her, we discovered that the bullet had obliterated her heart and damaged the forward lobes of her lungs. Similarly, FBI studies say that a human with a high level of determination (or one high on drugs like PCP) can not only survive, but continue fighting for 30 seconds after taking a direct shot to the heart.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

It's one of the reasons police officers hate dealing with people high on PCP. The officers have to use a huge amount of force to subdue the person and keep everyone safe and then, of course, that take down ends up being the nightly news.

You're hunting footage of the deer taking off with arrows in them was also pretty eye opening. If I remember right out of 20-30 clips, only one deer fell immediately.