Knife slash across chest - blood loss, etc.

Jen526 · Jun 19, 2009

What a great resource this place is! Thought I'd plunge right in with a question for y'all...

My character is being attacked by someone with a hunting knife. Right now, I've written it that he has a fairly long slash across the chest, as well as some defensive wounds on hands/arms. (I'm picturing it as the knife being diverted from the original killing blow and "skittering" across the ribs... nothing too penetrating.)

Ideally, I'd like him to be knocked unconscious and the injury to go untreated for some TBD time period. By the time help arrives, he's lost enough blood for it to be life-threatening and scary for those who find him, but survivable.

So, my question: How much blood loss & how fast with an injury like this? Can I get away with leaving him untended for a few hours?

Or, on the flipside... google-fu has turned up a couple mentions of slashes like this being fairly "minor" (relatively speaking, I guess). Do I need to carve him up worse to achieve the results I'm looking for? Any suggestions on better ways to knife him for a dangerous amount of blood loss without bleeding out too quickly?

TIA!

JrFFKacy · Jun 19, 2009

I think a slash in the chest would be fairly minor, but I'm not a doctor. If you went deep enough to really hurt him, you'd probably have damaged some major organs and thereby made the injury life threatening.

From what I know, some flesh wounds can bleed a lot/look really bad, without being lifethreatening. Sort of an optical illusion you know. Like his shirt is half soaked in blood, so it looks like he's dying, but he really hasn't lost that much blood. Me thinking aloud...

I would think that unless you were a really coarse person with a heart of stone, you'd be shook up by finding an abandoned person who's been knifed in the chest, so any amount of blood is going to be slightly shocking.

I would think he'd be fine for a short period of time, as long as you could get around having him go into shock. If he goes into shock, he's in trouble if he's by himself and unconcious.

Fenika · Jun 19, 2009

There's no major vessels running across the chest.

The arms and legs, however....

Unless you really hit a dozie (one that will kill you pretty fast) it still takes awhile to have enough blood loss that you'll pass out.

Izz · Jun 19, 2009

Jen526 said:
My character is being attacked by someone with a hunting knife. Right now, I've written it that he has a fairly long slash across the chest, as well as some defensive wounds on hands/arms. (I'm picturing it as the knife being diverted from the original killing blow and "skittering" across the ribs... nothing too penetrating.)

The wounds on the arms are likely to bleed more than the one across the chest. So the current scenario you have still could work, but with the defensive wounds on the arms being the kickers.

RJK · Jun 20, 2009

I agree with Bahamutchild and Isaac. There are many large veins and arteries, close to the surface in the arms. cut the artery and he's dead before help arrives. Cut a vein and he'd bleed for a long time.

Jen526 · Jun 20, 2009

Cool... sounds like this could work, then, for what I need. I kinda like the irony of the defensive wounds being the more dangerous, too.

Thanks, all!

Knife slash across chest - blood loss, etc.

Jen526

JrFFKacy

Rookie Firefighter

Fenika

Izz

Doing the Space Operatic

RJK

Sheriff Bullwinkle the Poet says:

Jen526