But i was intrested in seeing if anyone could answer one question that has me confused.
Alright, so one day a while back i remember my dad had left the window open. So it rained that night, and since our kitchen has one of those floors that get really slippery when wet, so unnecessary details aside, the floor got wet since the window got left open, and i had the craving for some, i guess beef or something, hell i dont know. anyway, i go and get the knife and said beef , i set the beef down, and wham, i fall, and the knife slashses my throat. Right on the carotid as i recall. So luckily for me, it wasnt deep at all, apparently the doctor said it cut only the skin.
So basically i was wondering, if it had gone much worse, like, if it went has deep as the carotid and punctured it, would i have died? I apologies for the mordibity of my first post, its just something ive always wanted to know since it happened.
Depends. It’s definitely been survived before*, but it all depends on how deep the cut goes, if you have help right there with you, how close you are to a good ER, if you can manage to somewhat “seal” the edges together (versus having it gush everywhere), etc.
Wiki article text says jugular, but the links all say carotid artery.
I’ve heard that even a superficial injury to a carotid artery may result in unclear thinking, resulting in speech and writing filled with pointless rambling.
Your defense mechanism is pulling your head down to protect your neck when sharp things are around, I’m pretty sure. Notice how the front of your neck pretty much disappears when you do this.
Unless you’re a superclotter, there isn’t a defense mechanism to prevent a bleedout from one of the major arteries, whether carotid or femoral. And as far as I know, there isn’t any such thing as a **superclotter **anyways.
Ergo, if you get slashed in one of the arteries without immediate first aid, yer’ a bled-out corpse before you know it!
Hope you didn’t need this info as a matter of urgency and all.
Actually, there are. Thrombophiliacs exist, most notable Factor V Leiden people.
However, they’re more prone to venous thromboemboli, so even a Thrombophiliac would probably die from a severed carotid artery.
If you sever your carotid, apply pressure to the wound to slow the bleeding. Hopefully your brain can be adequately supplied by the opposite carotid via the Circle of Willis. And call 911 so you can get to a vascular surgeon for emergent repair. You may survive, but possibly with side effects like an ischemic stroke.
Add in the shoulders shrugging up, and yeah, that’s pretty much it.
The problem is the pressure behind the blood and the size of the artery. The carotid is a pretty big one, and it’s at a fairly high pressure due to being close to the heart. While you can survive with only one carotid feeding the brain, you can also lose a critical amount of blood spurting out the severed carotid in minutes. When enough blood is lost, the system doesn’t have enough volume to keep the blood flowing at a high enough pressure to get through the kidneys on one end and to get up to the brain on the other.
If you witness a carotid artery cut, the critical things to do are to get the person to lie down (because they’ll fall in a minute), call 911 and provide really firm pressure over the cut on that side only and hold it steady until the paramedics arrive. Don’t cut off the carotid on the other side with pressure around the whole neck.
