Emergency overdose procedures and shot by a crossbow

[featherfire]

I have some questions about two unrelated scenes from the same novel. The setting is current day AU-USish

Comments

[ffutures]

Re situation 2 - a lot of authors think that the easy way out is to say that the person was shot in the shoulder. This is a REALLY bad idea, that area is full of major nerve clusters and blood vessels, and bones that are very difficult to repair if they break. Serious damage can lead to a whole-arm amputation - this actually happened to my uncle during WW2.

[ffutures]

Belated thought on this - how is his attacker firing a crossbow that fast?

[featherfire]

I thought there were crossbows that let you load multiple bolts at once? Maybe that was just something someone built...

I might need to switch to a gun. :/

[featherfire]

Ooh, that sounds like a good book to have. Thanks!

[sollersuk]

The Greeks and Romans had artillery that fired a succession of bolts like a machine gun (making use, I think, of a form of harnessed recoil to help), but I don't know of any hand-held ones. The problem lies in drawing back the string or equivalent, and there was no real point in firing several bolts simultaneously.