gunshot wounds (don't worry, nothing gross here)

[reveria]

Does anyone have an idea how long approximately a gunshot wound would take to heal? Say, left shoulder, no important organs injured, but with or without a fractured shoulder bone. (If anyone watches Desperate Housewives, something like Lynette had to put up with after she was shot by that psycho-woman in the supermarket) ;D

I know there’d be various complications to consider, but just to have a vague idea. I’ve googled it, but I can’t seem to find anything suitable. And I’d rather not ask a doctor unless I have to, because I’d like to avoid having to explain and subsequently embarrass myself

[Prestan]

it really depends on the caliber of the bullet. some would take... i dunno, two weeks. others, well you wouldn't have to worry about your shoulder healing because your head was thrown off with it.

[Cleric Russ]

I'm sure there's ballistics data that will corroborate or dispel my data but here's what I do know concerning weaponry...

1- Weapon calibre and distance will determine both the nature and trauma of any given wound; not excluding death potential from blunt force trauma;

Case in point, a 7.62 round fired at roughly 50 meters can hit an immovable object [like the canteen on the belt of a soldier] and spin the entire soldier 360 degrees relative to the original direction he was facing.

2- weapon type will also dictate the form of trauma-

A "shotgun" with a determinate blast radius given the shot-load and distance will dictate as little as flecking or the entire separation of limbs from the body- CIP:

A 000 deer slug at 10 feet will do extremely hyper ballistic blunt force trauma, but little in the way of open wounding: whereas a shot load of 00 #12 buckshot fired at the same 10 feet will rend flesh completely off of the target and inflict blunt force trauma equivalent to a car moving at about 50 mph.

Dictate into that the concepts of healing time & you get into an incredible belle's curve of data!

The size of the victim in all his/her myriad forms of diversity- the amount of potential or equivalent blood-loss; then there's the factors involving infection, which- sorry to burst the bubble of many a gun worshiper [myself standing tall amongst or above you all ;D] you will receive some form of nasty infection from a gunshot [rifle-shot, etc] wound- healing time is then dictated by a person's ability to fight off staph, neumococcyl or any other myriad of nasties just floating in the air...

Boiled down to its essence- one might expect to be "healed" in roughly a month or two. At best "amongst the walking dead" [another fave subject of mine, Zombies!] in roughly 2 weeks...

There's nothing that'll churn the ole tum-tum like pictures or "being there" when you have someone with a stomach wound... The bloating and scent of the body fighting infection can be an affront to the visitor and downright a moral buster to the poor victim.

Real wise- you'd need a month just fighting infection.

"Reel wise"- let's say it's 2 weeks.

Doesn't take away my thorough enjoyment and some would say "uneasily lustful" worship of rifled weaponry- but it definitely places importance on my respect for a devise that has no want or need of respect for the wielder or the intended target!

[Witcher Wolf]

To add to Cleric Russ' comments:

www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm

[reveria]

thanks for the information, guys! I think I'll have to re-write a certain scene *whistles and scampers off to edit/edit/edit*

[Cleric Russ]

Since I work as an armourer as well as special effects director outside my Disney Day Job, that's the only reason for my specifics, Reveria- don't feel like you have to change your script wholy based on the meer facts of "today's" science!

If you happen to be writing science fiction, set in relative terms of the future or an alternate future/reality [such as Equilibrium], just be certain to have some form of "super science anti-infection drug" mentioned or display'd within your scene- please don't feel like you'd have to withdraw a whole segment of script based on "facts" unless what we've discussed adds to the development of of your character!

Or- think of it in terms of us FX guys- we like building props- so building a special box with cool looking vials inside along with an injector gun just adds to our creative juices [not to mention paycheck!] "Interval anyone?"

[reveria]

well see, that's why I ask before I write something I'm not sure about. being a perfectionist has its downsides at times, but it has saved me a lot of embarrassment in terms of realism and credibility ;D

I'll have to see how it goes. I generally struggle with action scenes (damn, I hate them when I'm the one who's got to write them!), so I'll probably write 5 million variations, and then play eenie meenie moh with them

besides, since you'd most definitely be left with a Scar, I'd either have to photoshop one on dear Preston, or get someone else shot ;D

I'll see. but thank you for all the useful stuff

wow, that's a lot of smileys in one post...

[kingofsorrow]

i was shot with a .22 and it took 2-3 weeks for the wound to heal. at 4 weeks the stitches were removed. swelling went down after 2 weeks. pain disipated after 2-3 weeks. of course this was about 18 yrs ago so memory might be fuzzy.

[Gothicgds]

clericruss said:

1- Weapon calibre and distance will determine both the nature and trauma of any given wound; not excluding death potential from blunt force trauma;

Mind if I consult your obvious expertise?

(Before you get worried, it's for a fic.)

Is there a way, like a particular calibre or type of bullet, that a handgun could hit someone in the side and do enough damage with one or two shots at most to be a killing wound to a normal human, even if it doesn't hit any major organs? The victim is a fairly small woman, getting shot from behind at a range of about 4 to 5 feet.

(Fortunately I don't have to be too concerned with healing time since my character has some serious metaphysical factors on her side. But it also means she has to take a very nasty wound in order to risk killing her.)

[Witcher Wolf]

I'll step in here and say that from my experience, talking to Police officers, Army personnel and a few doctors, there's the factor of shock/blood loss to consider when you're shot Gothic, so you could easily have someone shot in your story and they could die from it even though it didn't hit any major organs.

A friend of mine in the Armed Forces was unlucky enough to get clipped and even though the bullet didn't kill her, she was close.

[Aedh]

gothicgds said:

Is there a way, like a particular calibre or type of bullet, that a handgun could hit someone in the side and do enough damage with one or two shots at most to be a killing wound to a normal human, even if it doesn't hit any major organs? The victim is a fairly small woman, getting shot from behind at a range of about 4 to 5 feet.

Hmmmm .... that's very close range. A lot would depend on the type of round. Getting a higher-power but small-calibre round .... it could conceivably go straight though, hitting no vital organs, leaving only a small exit wound ... in which case, infection and shock might be the main factors. You get hit with a 9MM round ... or especially a low-velocity .45 round (such as from an Army Colt) ... massive exit wound. Such rounds are designed to inflict maximum damage at just that range. You're pretty much dead. Or at least very close to it. That's what my military informants tell me anyway.

[Gothicgds]

aedh said:

Hmmmm .... that's very close range. A lot would depend on the type of round. Getting a higher-power but small-calibre round .... it could conceivably go straight though, hitting no vital organs, leaving only a small exit wound ... in which case, infection and shock might be the main factors. You get hit with a 9MM round ... or especially a low-velocity .45 round (such as from an Army Colt) ... massive exit wound. Such rounds are designed to inflict maximum damage at just that range. You're pretty much dead. Or at least very close to it. That's what my military informants tell me anyway.

It doesn't have to be that close range. I freely admit I know diddly about guns, so I was just guessing that a shot from a handgun would have to be pretty close range to do that kind of damage.

Basically, it would have to be a gun small enough to be hidden under a person's clothes but powerful enough to kill people who are tougher than normal humans.

I don't really need very specific information, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't making a handgun do something it can't.

One more question- would the metal of the bullet get into the bloodstream?

clericwolf said:

I'll step in here and say that from my experience, talking to Police officers, Army personnel and a few doctors, there's the factor of shock/blood loss to consider when you're shot Gothic, so you could easily have someone shot in your story and they could die from it even though it didn't hit any major organs.

A friend of mine in the Armed Forces was unlucky enough to get clipped and even though the bullet didn't kill her, she was close.

I guess I'll have to hide behind small calibre and preternatural stamina then, because if the victim died from the first shot, it would make for a very unsatisfying end to the story.

[Witcher Wolf]

Small calibre and pre-natural stamina are fine by me, heck, pre-natural stamina could probably shrug off a high calibre wound - the reality is what you make of it.

[Gothicgds]

clericwolf said:

Small calibre and pre-natural stamina are fine by me, heck, pre-natural stamina could probably shrug off a high calibre wound - the reality is what you make of it.

Eh, she's not that powerful. If she were, it would be kind of boring and not very suspenseful.

[Aedh]

gothicgds said:

I don't really need very specific information, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't making a handgun do something it can't.

Gunshots can do some strange things. I heard in the military of a case where a round entered someone in the arm .... for some odd reason it didn't go straight through but travelled along bones instead ... and exited the body from a leg. Ouch!!

[Witcher Wolf]

gothicgds said:

clericwolf said:

Small calibre and pre-natural stamina are fine by me, heck, pre-natural stamina could probably shrug off a high calibre wound - the reality is what you make of it.

Eh, she's not that powerful. If she were, it would be kind of boring and not very suspenseful.

When you say pre-natural stamina you forget one important thing:

I am not able to read your expression nor see into your mind...so how the hell would I know how powerful she is?

For all I know she could have been more powerful than Superman and the Hulk combined, without a frame of reference it's like shooting in the dark and only Preston's capable of that feat.

I'll re-iterate the link I posted earlier:

www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm

Some others:

www.soton.ac.uk/~jb3/bullet/gsw.html

The effect of gunshot wounds on human genes...

www.springerlink.com/content/xp5143882583u682/

A list of effects from a gunshot wound to the chest, a single one:

www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlFilePath=journals/ijrdm/vol3n2/gsw.xml

Bullet fragmentation and lead toxicity:

www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/176/5/1144

So you're going to have to take into account several factors if you want to raise the realism level of your story. Or you can just say that her pre-natural stamina was enough to save her life.

Thanks to modern medical methods these days we're able to bounce back from most injuries, but gunshot wounds are really a case of surgeon's skill, patients stamina and other factors.

I've had a few friends who've been shot (as I said) some of them aren't with us any longer. They knew the risks when they signed up for the Armed Forces and went to serve in Northern Ireland.

[Gothicgds]

clericwolf said:

When you say pre-natural stamina you forget one important thing:

I am not able to read your expression nor see into your mind...so how the hell would I know how powerful she is?

Er... That's why I was asking how the gunshots affected humans. From that information I could then extrapolate how much worse it would have to be to overcome the supernatural advantage, because I do know how powerful I want her to be.

I appreciate your assistance and the links. And I apologize, I didn't realize it was such a personal subject for you. Thanks again for your help.

[Witcher Wolf]

You're welcome.

I had to do quite a lot of research for a supplement I wrote at one point, ballistics and gunshot wounds were part of that.