I saw a disturbing video on CNN that shows a person in Iran who was supposedly shot in the heart. About half a minute later, that person started bleeding out of the mouth, nose, and one eye.
Disgusting topic, I know–but why the heck did that happen? Does getting shot in the heart cause a massive increase in blood pressure? Horrible mental picture but that just seemed unusual to me.
Depending on the path of the bullet(s), there could have been a rupture of the lung, or even oesophagus. Both could cause bleeding from the mouth and nose.
Yeah, what the said. The heart is pretty much surrounded by the lungs. If you get shot in the heart you are almost certain to have been shot in the lungs as well. When you breathe out you expel the fluid in the lung, which in this case happens to be blood. The tear ducts are also connected to the nose, so I guess that’s how blood found its way to the eyes.
A person shot in the thorax may be hit in the mediastinum, which is the central compartment containing the heart, great vessels and airway, or the lung cavities, or both. As Blake points out, a shot that penetrates the aorta or heart will cause massive bleeding, and if the injury also penetrates the lungs, bronchi or trachea, there will be blood coming out of the mouth and nose. Eye socket is a little stranger, but may be due to tear ducts, the shock wave accompanying the round, depending on where it hit, or stray fragments zinging around the torso and neck.
She wasn’t bleeding from her eye. The blood from her nose ran into her eye.