# Bleeding to death--painful? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 25, 1999, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504 "1999-09-25T16:37:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/21 "2011-10-12T19:26:38Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > 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? ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/22 "2011-10-12T20:00:06Z")
> [@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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/23 "2011-10-12T20:32:28Z")
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… ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/24 "2011-10-12T20:39:29Z")
12 years is a _long_ time to be bleeding. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/25 "2011-10-13T02:52:39Z")
> [@TVeblen](#): > > … > > 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, … > Veb Re “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? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/26 "2011-10-13T03:15:36Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/27 "2011-10-13T05:34:41Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/28 "2011-10-13T05:38:15Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/29 "2011-10-13T06:26:21Z")
> [@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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/30 "2011-10-13T16:53:45Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![aux203](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/77aa72/32.png) [@aux203](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aux203)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2011, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/31 "2011-10-14T09:18:04Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![Jesireg\_aol.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@Jesireg\_aol.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jesireg_aol.com)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/32 "2013-06-01T18:07:47Z")
I almost died of blood loss after childbirth because I was hemmorraging- for almost 12 hours, until they final did surgery to save me, which required removing my uterus. Anyway, I remember nausea and gagging a lot, dizziness and delirium. Going sort of in and out of consciousness. Knowing I was dying if they didn’t fix this, but so weak I wasn’t afraid. Too “out of it” to feel any emotion really. It wasn’t “painful”, but it was awful. The nausea was terrible (an effect of blood pressure dropping). I could barely move or speak. A feeling of total helplessness. Crazy. In retrospect I feel the “trauma”, the “fear”; but I didn’t feel it while it was happening. When I woke up in the icu, the nurse said to me “we are so happy you’re here”. And I was thinking “why are you happy that I’m here? Thats weird.” I asked, “why? Did I almost die or something?” And she said “yes”. ---
**Author:** ![JBDivmstr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b4bc9f/32.png) [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/33 "2013-06-01T18:37:31Z")
Welcome to the Straight Dope, **[Jesireg@aol.com](mailto:Jesireg@aol.com)**! 🙂 It seems that you’ve posted to a ‘zombie’ thread. :eek: Just a friendly tip, if you haven’t already done so, you really should read the ‘rules for posting’. If you click on the FAQ, located at the top in the blue bar, it will lead you to the ‘General Forum Usage’ page. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/34 "2013-06-01T19:57:57Z")
Not just a zombie, a double zombie. Maybe even triple, considering the OP. ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/35 "2013-06-01T20:20:56Z")
Plus I don’t think using your aol address would be very safe username ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/36 "2013-06-01T20:43:00Z")
I once drove a guy to the hospital who had gashed his hand open in an industrial accident, and he was seriously bleeding, but seemed to be more in fear and anger than in pain, although I’m sure it hurt a hell of a lot, too, from the trauma. He lost about a pint of blood in the back seat of my car in about a 15 minute drive, which all clotted so thoroughly that I could pick it up like a piece of liver. ---
**Author:** ![D18](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@D18](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D18)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/37 "2013-06-01T21:42:03Z")
First time I’ve seen a resurrected Opal thread since her death, and this had to be the topic. ::sigh:: ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/38 "2013-06-01T21:55:56Z")
This thread kind of threw me, when I saw the OP’s name and the topic. Then I realized it must be a zombie, and sure enough, it was … and even a double-zombie, at that. Anyway, on the topic of the thread … When I had an appendectomy, I had undetected internal bleeding that dropped my blood pressure to 40/20 before they realized what was happening (the only nurse on duty was busy dealing with another patient in the next room over, a very elderly woman with advanced Alzheimer’s who kept defecating in her bed, so I got kind of overlooked for a while). It wasn’t painful at all, other than the pain from the surgery itself, which was fairly minimal at that point since it had been a quick laparoscopic appendectomy with only three tiny incisions and I was on a bit of morphine for post-surgical pain control anyway. Mainly, I just felt tired and lightheaded, and if I tried to sit up at all, I’d pass out and regain consciousness 15-20 seconds after falling back into a horizontal position. I was very thirsty, but that could have been because of the aftereffects of the general anesthesia, I’m not sure. But I was pretty close to bleeding to death, and it wasn’t painful. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/39 "2013-06-01T22:26:14Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > Plus I don’t think using your aol address would be very safe username I don’t understand this mentality. ---
**Author:** ![Gbro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Gbro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gbro)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2013, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504/40 "2013-06-01T22:46:24Z")
Whereas many people that bleed don’t die if the loss is arrested in time, TBS Internal bleeding can lead to pain. I do not know the etiology, but I was in remarkable discomfort for a couple weeks if not more several years back when I had a bad stick when donating blood. I was also on .81MG aspirin and taking a couple gel caps each day of Cod Liver Oil. I was bruised from my elbow to my wrist and I do not ordinarily bruise at all when I donate. My whole lower arm ached like a mild tooth ache. But nothing like the pain i am in for the last month with a Meniscus tear. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bleeding-to-death-painful/3504.md?page=3)