Arrow wounds
Aug. 12th, 2023 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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This Tumblr post has lots of information about arrows and arrow inflicted wounds!
www.tumblr.com/salt-and-a-dash-of-pepper/181277837478/writing-advice-on-arrow-wounds
www.tumblr.com/salt-and-a-dash-of-pepper/181277837478/writing-advice-on-arrow-wounds
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-12 09:53 am (UTC)Might be interesting for anyone including an archer in their stories, but is also just fun to watch in general!
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-12 11:35 pm (UTC)(
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 06:53 am (UTC)(I indeed have watched Bluminek's videos very aptly, too :)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-12 06:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-12 09:00 pm (UTC)Post is behind a sign-up wall
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 06:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 05:10 pm (UTC)Thanks, it works fine on desktop, but refuses to open on my phone.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 07:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 05:05 pm (UTC)I’m getting both this DW post and the Tumblr link just fine in the US, and I get the impression that
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 05:08 pm (UTC)Also in the US :/ A lot of
tumblr.com/<blog name>
URLs have been giving me this problem lately.(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 07:01 pm (UTC)https://blumineck.tumblr.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 07:54 pm (UTC)Thanks, but it just redirects to tumblr.com/blumineck
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 08:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 08:27 pm (UTC)No worries, thanks for trying to help! It's not your fault that tumblr is so temperamental.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 08:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-14 02:56 am (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/blumineck
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 01:53 am (UTC)In general, the problems fall under the same mistake that almost all media makes: the idea that the surgeon is at all interested in removing the bullet or arrowhead. WE ARE NOT. Arrowheads are not as self-sterilizing as bullets--no heat in firing--but infection can drain through the wound; if I couldn't get out an arrowhead easily, or wasn't in a body cavity I was already working in on injured organs, I WOULD NOT GO AFTER IT. There is no difference between the body's treatment of a round bullet and a sharp arrowhead: both are foreign bodies, both can cause infection if they take contamination into a wound, but bodies are great at dealing with foreign bodies. The wound must be monitored, and if infected, the pus drained; but an open wound is a safe wound, and if you can wash it out with betadine or even better have antibiotics, you might be just fine with that new part of you forever.
The primary problem with penetrating injuries is THE INJURED TISSUE THE MISSILE TRAVERSED--the actual injury inflicted. If there's a hole in your heart, you bleed out; a hole in your guts, and peritonitis and infection will kill you; a hole in your lung big enough to leak air, and you asphyxiate from a pneumothorax or cardiovascular collapse from a tension pneumothorax (what I think they are referred to by the totally wrong term of "emphysema," which is a lung tissue abnormality often from smoking; perhaps he refers to subcutaneous emphysema? But that heralds a pneumothorax, a potentially deadly injury).
As far as muscle damage goes, from pulling out a barbed arrow: honest to god, I couldn't care less. Muscle heals well in a healthy person. It's fine. Pulled out a barbed arrow through guts: sure, it makes the problem worse. But the initial problem was the arrow through the guts in the first place! Pushing it through doesn't FIX THE HOLE IN THE GUTS, which is the thing that will kill you.
There are tons of people walking around with bullets in them. Shrapnel. Random bits of whatever. Not so much arrows, but that's a stats problem: not too many people shooting each other with arrows these days.
Sorry to be annoying! But I was annoyed. :/
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 06:49 am (UTC)And I bet we're going to ignore it completely because we *want* to poke around our blorbos' wounds :')
So: dislodged arrow heads might better be left inside - but pushing intact barbed arrows through, was that also the worse decision, from a modern surgeon point of view?
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 04:55 pm (UTC)The key thing is to know what organ/tissue/etc the arrow is already through, which often you can and sometimes you can't without exploring. Anatomy knowledge can tell you if you're in a safe spot or not, but there are so many variations! That said if the dang thing is already through, coming out the back of the person, yeah, probably ok to break off the fletching and push it though. Won't do any MORE damage, one hopes. Except that if it IS through something important, specifically a blood vessel, the shaft might be holding the hole it has made closed, and removing it will uncork that problem.
For example: an arrow going through the lateral thigh, front to back: I know that there is nothing there I can hurt other than muscle and maybe some small nerves. Pull it out if you like! Keep the wound clean and dressed; do NOT sew it up! But arrow through medial thigh, front to back: tricky! One or two major arteries in there, depending on the level, and a big honking vein. Is it already bleeding like crazy? If so, is the blood dark or bright? Is there a pulse in the foot? Those can help me guess if it's already hurt a vessel. If not bleeding very much, pulse normal in foot, and arrow all the way through, I would probably push it through, being ready to hold pressure if it starts spraying in my face, and open up the groin and the wound to find the blood vessel and repair it.
It's all context dependent, is what I am saying. There's no good rule--push it out VS pull it out VS leave it in place. It depends on what it might have hit! And depending on what organ it hit, there will be a totally different approach. For example, it hit the lung: 95% chance surgery is not needed for bleeding. BUT, a tube to drain the leaky air and what bleeding there is IS needed: a thoracostomy tube. Hit the heart: 100% surgery IS needed, but the heart is relatively trivial to fix or catastrophically NOT POSSIBLE to fix. A small penetrating would you can literally just use a skin stapler and be done with it; if a bunch of muscle is blown away, you're basically dead no matter what. BUT the pericardium must be opened, because even a small amount of blood in it can compress the heart and kill you.
What I am saying I guess is... uh, there's a reason it's taken me a decade to become a surgeon. If there were easy rules to follow here then my training would have been a lot shorter :)
Never fear, most people won't have any idea, so you can write what you like--and if you want some anatomical accuracy, I love explaining this shit and would love to help.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 07:17 pm (UTC)Although I'm not even a whump writer, but the occasional need to spill some blood does arise from time to time. :}
I have used some details of that arrow article I linked - that's why I shared it - but I'm usually very sceptical with punctured organs and underestimated arrow wounds because I think they were horrible and deadly IRL. (I had the arrow in my fic scrape a tree first and then it went uh into the arse meat :)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 08:52 pm (UTC)(Although there’s at least one instance of a red-tailed hawk(1), the species used in the movie, surviving for a month in the wild with an embedded arrow before he was captured, treated, and released; that said, he did have the benefit of 2016 U.S. veterinary medicine.
https://www.wsls.com/news/2016/04/07/hawk-shot-by-arrow-seen-flying-in-pennsylvania/
https://www.ydr.com/story/news/local/2016/04/11/hawk-mend-after-arrow-removed-its-chest/82913350/
https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/2016/04/13/injured-hawk-arrow-release-game-commission/82986670/)
(1) That An Evil Cleric Did It only partially explains what a redtail was doing in Fairytale Medieval France; how the Bishop of Aquila had access to a New World bird as a curse template is a whole ‘nother headscratcher.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-08-13 08:55 pm (UTC)My first thought about that situation is: boy I'd rather work on a human any day, regardless of size or relative size of wound. The structures you'd have to repair on a bird would be SO MUCH SMALLER. Tiny stitches are HARD; tiny blood vessels that get fixed clot off :(