Bleeding to death--painful?

[OpalCat]

Let's leave aside the reason you're bleeding, since obviously, say, a gunshot or a knife in the stomach would be painful...

Let's say someone put an IV tube in you, numbing the area thouroughly, and then set the tube draining the blood from you. Would it be a painful death or would you just get really lightheaded and pass out, then die?

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[Suzeanne]

I've had at least three occasions where I came very close to "bleeding to death." (I don't clot very well, so ...)

In all three cases, aside from whatver caused the bleeding, everything felt really distant and hazy. I don't remember an awful lot of it, everything was that fuzzy. I do, however, remember that it didn't hurt, knowing I was going to die if they didn't do something about it.

Kinda weird.

[TVeblen]

I think that you would grow light headed and faint before death. As to whether or not it's painful, well, that's another whole thing.

BTW, you might check out a book called (I think) How We Die. It's written by a doctor and describes the actual processes of death from various causes. A friend had lost her husband to a totally unexpected heart attack, and I just couldn't finish the that part. The book actually tells the *feeling* of death from various causes. I don't remember that bleeding to death was one, though.

My guess is that as blood pressure drops, unconsciousness would result. But I don't know how much pain--physical and mental awareness--there would be be. The only thing I can recall offhand is a section of the book, The Devils of Loudun, where it describes the torture and burning death of a priest.

I got lightheaded even reading it, but the book described a sort of natural anesthetic that kicks in when the body perceives an injury as mortal. Don't accept this without better authority, but IIRC it's the basis of surgical shock, a sort of merciful cancellation of pain. I have no idea of the *mental* awareness involved though, so while the physical pain may be muted, I have no idea if the pain of knowing one is dyng is gentled, too.

This isn't much of an answer. I will try to find out more, if you would like. Or better, still perhaps Dr. J. or a medical professional here can give a real answer.

Veb

[Ringo]

Once upon a time, I came very close to such a passing. I do remember becoming quite lightheaded, but I had some sensations from the injury that was causing the bleeding (my liver was in shreds) so I can't really describe the experience as blissful. But I think you would probably become increasingly light headed and then just go lights out. I can't really imagine why a loss of blood would cause pain - what nerves would be stimulated to produce any pain?

Regards

[Therealbubba]

It must depend on how fast you bleed. If blood is lost fast, the brain will shut down before any other organ system can be affected. However, if the bleeding was rather slow, say one unit per hour, you could concievably have a lethal arrythmia before you passed out.

The most likely arrythemia would be ventricular fibrillation. This would cause the blood flow in the coronary arteries to diminish or stop, leading to a myocardial infarction. We all know that an MI will give you crushing chest pain, among other symtoms.

The upside (if you want to call it that) is that your heart attack probably wouldn't last too long. So my answer is yes, it is possible to feel pain from bleeding to death, albeit indirectly.

Therealbubba

[Ringo]

Good answer - I hadn't thought it through that well.

[pluto]

I think you would painlessly pass out and die. Donating blood is painless once the needle is inserted. (Well, there is some mild discomfort from having the needle there.) I once had a nosebleed severe enough that I eventually passed out (by then I was at the emergency room) and there was no pain. In fact it felt pretty good at the time.

BTW the technical term for losing all your blood is exsanguination. The ER tech (different occasion) told us this as he pointed out that we all stop bleeding eventually!


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"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"
-- William of Ockham

[bantmof]

...everything felt really distant and hazy. I don't remember an awful lot of it, everything was that fuzzy
I'm like that all the time.

--
peas on earth

[Nickrz]

If I were conscious to see that much of my own blood (or anyone else's, for that matter), that condition would not last very long. I dunno how those paramedics or doctors or nurses or anyone can withstand the horror of seeing that stuff (and worse) all the time, which is why I don't understand the popularity of "Life in the E.R." genre of TLC shows.

Makes me queasy and I shudder every time I even surf past one of those commercials. Sorry for the MPSIMmy reply, but does anyone else think that stuff is ghoulish?

[PunditLisa]

I dunno how those paramedics or doctors or nurses or anyone can withstand the horror of seeing that stuff (and worse) all the time...

It's like violence. You see enough of it, and it doesn't faze you anymore. Personally, I'm fascinated by the surgical shows. I've seen heart surgeries where they had to cut through ribs, mammographies, and transplant surgeries. The *only* time I've gotten remotely sick was when I flicked on the show without knowing what the operation was. I had a magnified view of a human body part. I couldn't figure out what it was until finally I recognized a big toe! They were doing bunion surgery. Don't know why, but something about that hairy toe did me in....

[pluto]

Personally, I'm fascinated by the surgical shows.

I've only seen a couple of these. One was a breast reconstruction. I thought it would be interesting, maybe even a little titillating. It was not! They took a piece of flesh from the abdomen, dragged it under the skin and muscles, poked it out at the appropriate spot, and kinda folded it to the right general shape. Seems to me it would have been easier just to use a prosthesis, but they didn't ask my opinion.

The other was an arthroscopic knee surgery, replacing the anterior cruciate ligament or some such thing. A lot less bloody, but...In order to give the surgeons room to work they pump the knee joint full of water. They had already drilled and poked a number of holes in this guy's knee for various reasons. When they started the water it looked like something out of a Yosemite Sam cartoon, or maybe fireboats in New York Harbor. Water was shooting everywhere! Yuk!



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"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"
-- William of Ockham

[Prairie Rose]

I almost bled to death during my emergency c-section three months ago. I don't know how the various medications they were giving me affected things, but I can pretty much verify that it is a drowsy, peaceful sort of thing. Strange to feel that way when everyone was bustling around and working so hard, too.

Glad to still be here, and even gladder to have my dear son. But not an experience I ever want to repeat.

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If you're not part of the solution you're just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.

[TheIncredibleHolg]

Personally, I'm fascinated by the surgical shows. I've seen heart surgeries where they had to cut through ribs, ..I kind of like those, too. But I cringe at the very thought (not to mention sight) of surgery to the eyes or genitals. I wonder why that is.

However, the only TV show that ever made me do without dinner was a British pseudo-documentary that depicted the possibility of a nuclear war. (I don't remember the title, though.) It was old (60s or so), b/w, and not very graphic. Still, it was damn realistic and just about made me sick.does anyone else think that stuff is ghoulish?Not really, but I'm amazed at the number of people here who have actually been in a situation where they almost bled to death!

[Drain Bead]

The aforementioned How We Die is written by a doctor named Sherwin Nuland, and it's probably one of the better books of nonfiction I've read in recent memory. The chapter about murder and serenity was the one that got me.

[voltaire]

I always thought (mostly based on movies I guess) that you just feel cold. I don't think there would be any pain involved since its just like when you cut off the circulation to your leg and it "falls asleep". So put me down for cold & numb.

[The Ryan]

beatle posted 09-25-1999 07:49 PM
I can't really imagine why a loss of blood would cause pain - what nerves would be stimulated to produce any pain?
I would depend a lot on how the body "decides" to allocate the rapidly shrinking supply of blood. If the heart is deprived of blood, that could cause chest pains. If the brain is deprived of blood, that can cause large changes in perception and sensation. Since the brain is basically a bunch of nerves, any change in the chemical environment of the brain can cause diverse effects.

[Ringo]

As noted several posts above, I didn't really thinks this one through. Experienced a little rash of that this weekend.

Nevertheless, I don't think we've gotten to the answer yet. A couple of searches for "bleeding", "bleeding to death" and "hemorrhage" have taught me a little bit about first aid and that there is some (apparently metal) band called Bleeding to Death. Nothing on the experience, and I don't suppose we can expect to hear from any of those who've brought it to consumation.

But we do know that those who flirt with the experience become lightheaded and that catastrophic blood loss may well induce a painful heart attack. Unless I've failed to get over my weekend's attention deficit, I think we're mostly down to: would you be unconscious prior to the possibly painful events (or, maybe, would your sensory perception be so diminished as to render the heart attack or chest pains minor?)?

We are, of course, ignoring particular scenarios. The gunshot or knife wound (or conscious perception of impending demise) might have some play on your perception that would involve a different situation from that of somebody who didn't get sewed up quite right after a routine surgery and drifts off in ICU.

Ugh.

Regards

[LeeTK]

I came close to bleeding to death a few years ago.
I had had previous abdominal surgery, had recovered and gone back to work. all was well.
I came home from work one evening via Tesco, after putting the shopping away I felt tired so decided to have a quick lie down while I thought about what to have for supper.
I woke up a few minutes later - or so I thought - and felt thirsty so stood up to go into the bathroom. I realized I was soaking wet and thought at first it was sweat. It was actually blood. I had in fact been unconscious for over an hour. The police later estimated aprox 1.5 ltr of blood in my bed and carpet next to the bed and a further 1 ltr in the bathroom with another half litre in my clothes. I remember feeling very dizzy, then so weak I sank to the floor just grabbing my mobile in time. I managed to call 999 and the ambulance controller kept me alive by keeping me talking for as long as I could. I eventually passed out and the police and paramedics broke my door down and saved my life.
I was slumped on the floor on my hands and knees with my head on the carpet, I remember gasping for breath with my voice getting weaker and vision and hearing going distant. Even though I was on my knees, face down, head on the floor I remember feeling very peaceful, like I was lying on my back on a bed of soft feathers, then I just drifted off. I was dead and the medics broke in just in time and brought me back.
It was not painful at all though and I am now not frightened of dying.

[Malacandra]

No, because if the worst comes to the worst you will rise up and lurch off looking for braiinsss....

[engineer_comp_geek]

LeeTK, you should be aware that the thread you have posted to is more than a decade old, and many of the original posters to it are no longer around to comment on it. That said, we don't mind resurrecting old threads when you have something relevant to post to them, and to me your post does seem to be relevant.

Old resurrected threads are commonly called "zombies" around here, so don't be too surprised if you get a few zombie jokes as a result of resurrecting such an old thread (hence the "braiinsss" comment from Malacandra).

[Inigo Montoya]

No, because if the worst comes to the worst you will rise up and lurch off looking for braiinsss....If only Lee TK could have waited a couple more weeks to revive this one. It'd have been a perfect Halloween thread.

Actually, I want more input on the myocardial infarction scenario presented by Therealbubba. How likely is this? And how slow does the bleed need to be in order to be aware of it when/if it happens?

[drewtwo99]

I came close to bleeding to death a few years ago.
I had had previous abdominal surgery, had recovered and gone back to work. all was well.
I came home from work one evening via Tesco, after putting the shopping away I felt tired so decided to have a quick lie down while I thought about what to have for supper.
I woke up a few minutes later - or so I thought - and felt thirsty so stood up to go into the bathroom. I realized I was soaking wet and thought at first it was sweat. It was actually blood. I had in fact been unconscious for over an hour. The police later estimated aprox 1.5 ltr of blood in my bed and carpet next to the bed and a further 1 ltr in the bathroom with another half litre in my clothes. I remember feeling very dizzy, then so weak I sank to the floor just grabbing my mobile in time. I managed to call 999 and the ambulance controller kept me alive by keeping me talking for as long as I could. I eventually passed out and the police and paramedics broke my door down and saved my life.
I was slumped on the floor on my hands and knees with my head on the carpet, I remember gasping for breath with my voice getting weaker and vision and hearing going distant. Even though I was on my knees, face down, head on the floor I remember feeling very peaceful, like I was lying on my back on a bed of soft feathers, then I just drifted off. I was dead and the medics broke in just in time and brought me back.
It was not painful at all though and I am now not frightened of dying.

Wow! That's an incredible story, and I am so glad you were able to reach your phone in time to make that life saving call.

[Quercus]

Didn't the Romans like to commit suicide by bleeding to death in a hot bath, often with witnesses?

If so, I would think that's evidence that it's not clearly excruciating. Both because I would think it would fall out of favor as a suicide method if it caused rolling around in screaming agony, and because if it was excruciatingly painful, well, then the Romans would have no need to go to the trouble of building actual wooden crosses...

[Wheelz]

12 years is a long time to be bleeding.

[Leo Bloom]

.....

I got lightheaded even reading it, but the book described a sort of natural anesthetic that kicks in when the body perceives an injury as mortal. Don't accept this without better authority, but IIRC it's the basis of surgical shock, a sort of merciful cancellation of pain. I have no idea of the *mental* awareness involved though, so while the physical pain may be muted, ...
VebRe "surgical shock." I've never heard this term. A while ago there was a thread (I think I was the OP, come to think of it) where the question became whether animals, as they were being eaten alive, e.g., went into some altered, non-aware consciousness (a conclusion to assuage the horror we feel); one respondent said essentially "deal with it, the animal is aware of each agonizing second."

I, like many others, wonder and wish if, God forbid, we were in a torturous situation, when and to what degree "surgical shock" would kick in?

[AaronX]

In the book Dan Brown's Lost Symbol one character tries to kill another by bleeding to death.

Isnt the cause of death of wrist slitting bleeding to death?

[Noel Prosequi]

To add a disquieting note, I have heard an emergency doctor testify that if a person is bleeding, the body compensates as much as it can by contracting the peripheral vascular system so as to keep the blood close to the body core and brain to maintain function for as long as possible.

But there comes a point, usually very close to death, when the body abandons this attempt, and "decompensates", resulting in the peripheral vascularity returning to business as usual.

This, he said, is accompanied by a sense of mortal terror and of impending death, if the patient is still conscious.

Why was this evidence necessary? Because one of the tests for the hearsay exception is the "dying declaration", where the declarant needs to have a "settled, hopeless expectation of death". This evidence was led to describe why the declarant in this case had such an expectation.

[Boyo Jim]

Except for maybe the needle, it doesn't hurt to donate blood. I don't see why donating all of it would be any more painful.

[Princhester]

Except for maybe the needle, it doesn't hurt to donate blood. I don't see why donating all of it would be any more painful.

It sounds from posts above like it may not be painful but I don't know that your reasoning follows. Just because losing some blood doesn't hurt it doesn't seem logically to follow through to a conclusion that losing a lot more also wouldn't hurt.

[MLS]

Two anecdotes: In the book Rawhide Down Ronald Reagan is reported to have been in pretty good spirits despite nearly bleeding to death. His main complaint was that it was hard to breathe, and this was because internal bleeding was crowding his lungs.

Second, one of my daughter's acquaintances suffered a gunshot near the heart and the report was much like LeeTK's. He felt tired, noticed wetness, and when he exited the car his friends noticed that the car seat was drenched in blood.

[aux203]

But there comes a point, usually very close to death, when the body abandons this attempt, and "decompensates", resulting in the peripheral vascularity returning to business as usual.

This, he said, is accompanied by a sense of mortal terror and of impending death, if the patient is still conscious.

Why was this evidence necessary? Because one of the tests for the hearsay exception is the "dying declaration", where the declarant needs to have a "settled, hopeless expectation of death". This evidence was led to describe why the declarant in this case had such an expectation.

I have never seen or heard of this phenomenon. Thousands of people have died with vascular monitors in place and I've never noticed or heard of a drop in peripheral resistance before death.

Not to say terror before death is uncommon but there are a lot of reasons for that. Many with life threatening bleeding have significant trauma, which not suprisingly tends to cause some distress which can confuse the issue. However, there are plenty of people who suffered relatively minor trauma and proceeded to bleed to death. Speen injuries are the classic, though liver injuries do it too. These people generally have some modest degree of discomfort right up until they pass out. Same with people who nick an artery, usually in the forearm or scalp. They may feel lightheaded and/or pass out but pain doesn't really seem to be a major issue. Even for the sober ones.

Bleeding without trauma is actually quite common too and is usually associated with the GI tract. People can drop liters of blood and don't realize it before either vomiting or defecating an alarming amount of blood. Pain is not generally associated with blood loss and again they usually get lightheaded, weak, and pass out long before they actually die.

Anemia can precipitate a heart attack in people with cardiac issues which would be painful. Usually the heart attack comes first, not the arrythmia. Healthy hearts will continue beating happily (albeit ineffectually) for quite a while even after a patient is brain dead from blood loss.

So no, bleeding to death isn't particularly painful. I always wondered why it wasn't a more common method of suicide but I suppose the requisite knowledge isn't in general circulation, which is perhaps a good thing.