Puncture Wounds Don’t Have To Cause Death
A puncture wound can hurt as much as a cut because the wound is often deeper than a cut. When someone is stabbed or perhaps they fall onto a pipe, the body has become punctured and any surrounding tissue is broken. The severity of the wound will depend on how deep it goes and how big the item was that is now imbedded in you.
As dangerous as they are, puncture wounds don’t have to cause death. People have been impaled on pipes and trees due to their car leaving the roud and going through fencing and survived.
When an item enters your body the damage can be massive but if none of the main organs have been touched the bleeding is held back by the item because it’s causing an obstruction. Only when the item is removed will it allow for blood to seep out and fill the cavity. Bleeding like this could cause death within minutes.
Never try to remove an item from yours or anyone else’s body in the case of an accident. When the paramedics arrive they will know what to do and it’s quite often the case that the fire brigade will cut the obstruction free so that it too can go to the hospital, still imbedded in its victim for the surgical team to remove.
Once out of surgery most people make a full recovery and return to normal life. However, some are left with horrific scars that may cause those emotional concerns or even physical discomfort. Although these are not immediately life threatening, people have been known to attempt suicide over such disfigurations to their bodies.
This would most probably be more apparent in those who have scaring to body parts that we can all see i.e. the face, chest, arms or legs. People who are affected this way may even have a disposition to depression or self image issues to begin with but it’s always worth remembering that a secondary condition like depression may follow any type of trauma in any given victim.
Even when a major organ has been punctured perhaps by a knife or a small item it is possible to make a good or full recovery. As above, if the item is left in place, there will be little or no bleeding to the injured area and the surgical team will remove it in theatre therefore giving the victim the best chance of survival and recovery.
If you are ever involved in an accident where injuries of this nature take place, always call for help and wait un till it arrives. Never try to treat yourself unless you are a trained member of the medical profession and by that I mean a doctor or a paramedic or a nurse, nor someone without dated first aid skills or someone who works as an orderly in a residential home. Get it wrong and you could have the lost life of another human being on your hands and your continence for the rest of your life.
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