Can you skin someone and leave them alive?

[FlyingRamenMonster]

@Rubystreak

In the Gene Wolfe book Shadow of the Torturer, one of the torturers flays a woman’s foot. Just her foot, as punishment for something. I wondered how she’d live through that and what would happen to her foot, Would the skin ever grow back? Was this just a slow, nasty way to kill her? It didn’t seem like she was intended to die, just to be tortured. They were treating her foot medically as if she would recover, somehow. I’ve always wondered about that.

I believe the skin removed was from her knee down, leaving her toes, which makes things a bit more serious.

[FlyingRamenMonster]

Oh, whoops, I see that’s already been mentioned.

[gabriela]

@WhyNot

No problem. Sorry to have introduced erroneous “facts” into GQ, and thanks for clearing that up.

(I’m on the waiting list for nursing school, after which I want to become a NICU nurse, so it’s nice to know one thing I won’t mis-speak when the time comes!)

Aww, your reply here is so generous. I wrote that late last night when I was cranky and should have been asleep. I worried about my irritable tone in a dream.

I hope you tell the same emotional truth to parents who need it someday when you care for these little endangered miracles of life in the NICU.

My hat’s off to you.

[gabriela]

@Rubystreak

I bet you are. And I believe you when say you are not a member of an imaginary torturer’s guild. Really.

OK, it’s time for my first ever smiley on the Dope:

But no. If I was a guild member, wouldn’t you think I’d have been tortured to death by now? Blabber mouth that I am.

@Rubystreak

So if a foot was flayed and the person didn’t die right away from the shock of the pain, what would happen to the person? Die of infection? Is that inevitable? If the person avoids infection, what would happen to the foot?

OK, Rubystreak: are we saying flayed plus no medical care, flayed plus delayed medical care, or flayed plus immediate top-notch medical care?

Flayed leg from knee to toes plus no medical care equals death from shock plus the cardiac stress of pain. It’s kind of like my gunshot wound victims who die from a simple lung shot, just because there was nobody around to save them. Any ER can stick in a chest tube and start a large-bore IV on a routine lung shot; there’s no reason why they should die (barring if it hits a pulmonary vein or whatever). But if there is no immediate medical care, injuries that wouldn’t kill you in an ER can kill you quite dead.

Flayed leg from knee to toes plus immediate medical care equals survival. The best thing to do would be to amputate above the knee. Guaranteed survival plus very little pain afterwards. Trying to save the limb would be close to guaranteed survival, but not perfect because there would be weeks if not months in the hospital, and any time you are that sick that long, infections happen. Some infections you can be salvaged from, others end you up in the morgue.

Flayed leg plus delayed medical care equals chancy survival. Depends on blood loss at first and infections later. Also on your age and shape: the younger and closer to normal weight you are, the more blood loss you can bear before your heart kicks over into a fatal arrhythmia. A twenty-year-old can bear a loss of a thousand cc’s whereas an old homeless guy might not be able to handle a pint and a half.

If they amputate, you don’t have a foot.
If they don’t amputate, you have something that resembles a foot, but it will never work exactly like a foot again, and pain will be your companion with every step you ever take.

[gabriela]

@The Sonoran Lizard King

Add me to the chorus of those who are very glad you decided to stick around.

{/end spontaneous testimonial}

Awwww…

[WhyNot]

@gabriela

Aww, your reply here is so generous. I wrote that late last night when I was cranky and should have been asleep. I worried about my irritable tone in a dream.

I hope you tell the same emotional truth to parents who need it someday when you care for these little endangered miracles of life in the NICU.

My hat’s off to you.

Hmm…Interesting, I didn’t read it as irritable at all, for what it’s worth. I read it, if anything, as a bit overgenerously gentle, and as if you were afraid you’d hurt my feelings simply by having more knowledge and experience (not to mention actual…you know…facts.) I wanted to be sure you knew I wasn’t offended or hurt by being corrected.

It’s kind of nice when the “misinterpreted tone problem” on message boards ends up with people coming across even nicer than they thought, isn’t it? Too often people just take offense for nothing at all.

I’m really glad you stuck around, as well.