# Does blood really spray out? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 13, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155 "2004-06-13T19:12:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/1 "2004-06-13T19:12:30Z")
I watched ‘Kill Bill Vol. 1’ yesterday, and I noticed that when the main character cut off limbs, heads, etc., blood would spray out like a high power hose. So does this really happen, or is this just a movie thing to make the severing of limbs look gory and particulary awesome? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/2 "2004-06-13T19:27:10Z")
I’m no doc, but there’s no way on Earth it would spray like in Kill Bill. That was just to give the violence a more cartoonish quality. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/3 "2004-06-13T19:51:59Z")
Open an artery, and it can spray like hell. I’ve seen it shoot over 8 feet in the OR when a clamp came off a major artery. Of course, it doesn’t sustain that sort of force for long. One truism in medicine: All bleeding stops. ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/4 "2004-06-13T19:55:48Z")
How long would the spraying artery keep its force? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/5 "2004-06-13T19:56:34Z")
**Qadgop** , have you seen Kill Bill? It cannot spray as much that, can it? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/6 "2004-06-13T20:00:37Z")
I’ve seen it, and no, it doesn’t spray like that, it spurts. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/7 "2004-06-13T20:08:10Z")
Haven’t seen Kill Bill, so I can’t comment. And **USC Diver** is correct, it pulses. But I’ve seen it pulse a hell of a long way. And I saw it pulse in a bullfight once, too. Out of the bull. Even my daughter, who was 7 at the time, commented, saying “OOh, look! He must have hit an artery!” ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/8 "2004-06-13T20:13:27Z")
Yeah, in Kill Bill it was like someone turned on a hose of blood. It didn’t pulse at all. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/9 "2004-06-13T20:16:47Z")
It’s freaking insane in Kill Bill, like the people had fire-hoses pumping blood up their asses. Pure cartoonery. ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/10 "2004-06-13T20:20:46Z")
Good movie though. Movies with real gore are never the best. What would a sword fight be if the limb didnt shoot off the person’s body after the other person swiftly chopped it off with the wave of a sword? ---
**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:** [June 13, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/11 "2004-06-13T21:11:08Z")
I got my leg slashed open once on a hallway (long story), just above and inside the left knee. When I got home from having 70 stitches put in in the ER, I was shocked at all the blood spattered on the floor and the walls, some of it over my head and out of reach without a stepstool. And I never even notices it was spraying around. And AFAIK, a major artery wasn’t even involved. ---
**Author:** ![flamingbananas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f4b2a3/32.png) [@flamingbananas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flamingbananas)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2004, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/12 "2004-06-13T22:23:02Z")
> [@Boyo Jim](#): > > I got my leg slashed open once on a hallway (long story), just above and inside the left knee. When I got home from having 70 stitches put in in the ER, I was shocked at all the blood spattered on the floor and the walls, some of it over my head and out of reach without a stepstool. > > And I never even notices it was spraying around. And AFAIK, a major artery wasn’t even involved. 70 stitches? 70? Dude…tell the story on how you needed 70 stitches on your knee because you slashed it open in a hallway. :dubious: ---
**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:** [June 13, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/13 "2004-06-13T22:51:31Z")
I misspoke. Somebody else slashed my leg when I intervened trying to stop an assault. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/14 "2004-06-14T01:01:37Z")
If someone’s vascular system was capable of sustaining the kind of pressure in Kill Bill, they would soon die of high blood pressure. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/15 "2004-06-14T02:29:28Z")
I think this is a way Tarantino emphasizes the whole homage to Japanese action cinema in Kill Bill 1. In one of the lists of media-genre clichés in the Web, there is an item that says: “In Anime, the Human body contains between 20 and 30 gallons of blood, under high pressure.” ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/16 "2004-06-14T06:20:23Z")
Why does everyone say that “he must have hit an artery”? Why couldn’t it have been a vein? ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/17 "2004-06-14T06:37:34Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > Why does everyone say that “he must have hit an artery”? Why couldn’t it have been a vein? The pressure of the blood in an artery (ie ‘blood pressure’) is typically between 80 and 150 mmHg. The pressure in vein (central venous pressure) is typically between 4 and 10 mmHg. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/18 "2004-06-14T11:38:59Z")
In one of Akira Kurasawa’s movies starring Toshiro Mifune – I think it was **Yojimbo** – the film ends with one of the Bad Guys getting slashed across the chest and a veritable _fountain_ of blood coming out – all high pressure, with no spurts. According to Donald Richie’s book on Kurasawa’s films, he did it to placate his fans who kept complaining that there wasn’t enough blood in his films. So he gave them this exagerrated bloddletting as a sop and a comment on what they wanted. I suspect this is where the whole idea of ludicrous gushing in samurai films started. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2004, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-blood-really-spray-out/250155/19 "2004-06-14T13:24:27Z")
Child’s play. Go see _Evil Dead_ for some SERIOUS bloodflow.