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

[lilacsigil]

EMTs will treat the symptoms and get her to hospital ASAP. If you google "emt seizure procedure" or something similar, you will get lots of accounts of what they do. They will take the bags with them because the hospital may want to test them; it's also possible the police will take them but this varies hugely by location.

If your character is shot in the upper back at such a close range four times, he's going to hit something major - the bolts will go right through his torso. It is potentially survivable with quick medical assistance (at least one lung will deflate and he will bleed a lot) presuming you don't hit a major blood vessel or organ. It's also plausible not to hit his spine. Expandable tips will do massive damage and he will bleed to death. The bolts themselves will do some muscle damage and the surgery or surgeries to save his life will do more. A long rehab followed by ongoing problems with muscles is entirely likely.

[featherfire]

Okay, no expandable tips lol.

Ugh, I'm recalling that one of my earlier searches was thickness of human torso vs length of crossbow bolt and they were like, the same or very close in thickness. I forgot all about that, damn. Would it make a difference if i put more distance between them? I might need to switch to a gun after all... would a small gun be puncturing organs too, or could the damage just be muscular?

[lilacsigil]

The more distance you have, the less momentum your crossbow will have, just like any other projectile. Twenty feet is pretty close. The problem you have with avoiding organ damage is that the torso is full of organs, and any kind of projectile weapon fired accurately is likely to hit something. A regular bullet is more likely to skid off bone than a crossbow, which will break bone, though some bullets are designed to break up in the body and cause more harm. But four shots are still likely to hit something relevant.

If he's shielding his boyfriend, the angle is going to be important - if the shooter is on the same level or slightly lower and hits his upper back while the boyfriend is pushed down for protection, the boyfriend might be fine.

[featherfire]

I completely forgot to mention (I typed this post in a hurry) that he is actually shielding someone else from being shot, pushes him against a tree. If he's shot in this way, would it go through him and into his boyfriend? what about from a greater distance? vs. a gun?

Sorry to bombard you with questions, I didn't realize how much of a wall this was. ^^;

[junkerin]

To Scene 2:
If he is REALLY LUCKY the arrows are stuck in his rips. It would hurt as hell, make it hard to breath (because the air gets knocked out of his lungs) and maybe one, two rips would break. The damaged to his mussels can depand on what you want.

Hope this helps

[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. :/

[anonymous]

1. In the US, paramedics administer drugs. When they arrive, S may have stopped seizing, in which case, an emergency dispatcher would have told her sister to be sure nothing was nearby that could hurt S during the seizure, roll S into her left side, and place something under her head. If she's still seizing when they arrive, they would check her pupils and seeing that they were dilated, know that she took stimulants like cocaine or meth. Narcotics also depress breathing, so there would likely be signs of hypoxia if that's what she took. Paramedics carry drugs for narcotic overdose, but they don't have anything to reverse stimulants. So they would simply place her on the stretcher on her left side and suction her airway and administer oxygen with a non-rebreather en route to the hospital, probably place her on a heart monitor

[featherfire]

Ah, thank you so much, that helps so much!

He does move after the first shot, and I neglected to mention that he's actually shielding someone else from being shot. But if the info in the first comment is true, that'd actually get his boyfriend shot as well because the bolts would go through him.

[eve_n_furter]

2. Even a small crossbow packs a tremendous punch. I had the chance to test out a small metal crossbow, about 8" wide across the bow, shooting steel arrows; and it shot through 0.7" sturdy birch-wood planks like it was butter. I could never have guessed from looking at the small thing. Imagine the damage you could do with a larger version. I would think it's a good chance for arrows shot by crossbow going right through a torso. It it nothing like conventional bow-and-arrow.

ETA: This illustrates my point: https://youtu.be/1nLRymWv-CA "Modern Crossbow vs. Modern Body Armor"

[featherfire]

Gah.

I'm thinking I really do need to use a gun, or find another weapon...

[elenbarathi]

Woah... high-tech modern crossbow! I was thinking of the traditional kind, which is quite lethal enough.