Gunshot Wound to Thigh
So I have this character in a WWII setting where he's running and is shot in the thigh by a gunman in a tower roughly 24 meters away and at a height of 11.6 meters. The hypotenuse of this triangle of impact I've created is 26.6 meters. The firing range of the machine gun itself can get up to half a mile at average (around 800 meters) so there was no problem with hitting him concerning the range.
My character is about 10-11 years old suffering from starvation/fatigue from much physical work. He's running at an average speed and my goal is for him to be shot in the thigh, but without rupturing the femoral artery. After I've looked at diagrams and just used my logic, I've thought that maybe, at that speed and distance, it could do anything but to miss the femoral artery (it's a small target>high speeds>big impact). So, my thinking is, once the bullet hits his leg, will go straight through the flesh, but it would be such a catastrophic wound that it would have to hit the femoral and condemn his leg to being cut off, or, more likely, bleeding out. Am I right? I hope not, I want this to work.
Potentially, I could make it so that my character is much closer (i.e., a few meters rather than 24). At that closer range, I would think it more reasonable for the bullet to both go through the flesh entirely but be able to miss the femoral if he's lucky.
My question is: How will this effectively injure this character? I'm no medical expert, and I'm not expecting anyone else on here to be, either, but I'd like some second opinions. Much thanks for any responses in advance.
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http://panorama.auschwitz.org/tour1,en.html (very interesting tour/LOTS of info. The first one titled "view from a watch tower" is the height from which I mentioned earlier and you can easily see the wall which they'd already scaled- never mind that)
My character is about 10-11 years old suffering from starvation/fatigue from much physical work. He's running at an average speed and my goal is for him to be shot in the thigh, but without rupturing the femoral artery. After I've looked at diagrams and just used my logic, I've thought that maybe, at that speed and distance, it could do anything but to miss the femoral artery (it's a small target>high speeds>big impact). So, my thinking is, once the bullet hits his leg, will go straight through the flesh, but it would be such a catastrophic wound that it would have to hit the femoral and condemn his leg to being cut off, or, more likely, bleeding out. Am I right? I hope not, I want this to work.
Potentially, I could make it so that my character is much closer (i.e., a few meters rather than 24). At that closer range, I would think it more reasonable for the bullet to both go through the flesh entirely but be able to miss the femoral if he's lucky.
My question is: How will this effectively injure this character? I'm no medical expert, and I'm not expecting anyone else on here to be, either, but I'd like some second opinions. Much thanks for any responses in advance.
-
http://panorama.auschwitz.org/tour1,en.html (very interesting tour/LOTS of info. The first one titled "view from a watch tower" is the height from which I mentioned earlier and you can easily see the wall which they'd already scaled- never mind that)