# How fast does one die when shot or stabbed?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 6, 2023, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358 "2023-02-06T02:37:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/1 "2023-02-06T02:37:23Z")
My only exposure to watching someone “die” comes from TV and movies where the bad guys will immediately fall dead from a single gunshot or a knife flung into the chest. Of course, if the good guy is hit, he’ll struggle on heroically, even if he eventually succumbs. In reality, could such a case result in instant death or is it more likely that the victim will die more slowly?
I need to know if my snark at action movies is justified.
---
### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/2 "2023-02-06T02:43:15Z")
There are so many factors involved that effect the answer to this question.
The one thing I do know is you don’t want to pull a knife out that has been lodged into you.
---
### Author:  [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/3 "2023-02-06T02:51:50Z")
There’s a wealth of organs in the torso, and some large, important arteries are running through there (and supplying those organs). If the knife or bullet enters the heart, it’s possible for that to kill someone almost instantly; if it misses the heart, lungs, and major arteries, they have a chance of making it through with emergency medical attention.
One of the things that always bugs me about the dramatic depiction of gunshot wounds is that they almost always present non-fatal wounds as something that can be just brushed off or bounced back from promptly. A bullet is going to do things to, say, a shoulder joint that the victim is likely to be dealing with for life.
---
### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/4 "2023-02-06T03:06:18Z")
> [@InternetLegend](#):
>
> If the knife or bullet enters the heart, it’s possible for that to kill someone almost instantly;
Agree in general with all you’ve said, but I’ll dissect (heh) this part just a bit more.
If the heart or major arteries are destroyed, _consciousness_ ends in a couple to a few seconds when crainal blood pressure drops to zero. At that point the body is inert but might still be breathing. Death is inevitable at that point but death itself is still a couple to 5 minutes in the future as the brain runs down.
If the brain is destroyed by gunfire, death, by definition, is right then and there.
---
### Author:  [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/5 "2023-02-06T03:06:49Z")
TV and films need to move the story along so when someone is shot they usually die immediately, but that’s not real life. It depends greatly on where you are shot.
As mentioned, a shot to the heart is usually fatal since the brain cannot survive long without oxygen supplied by the heart. People can survive a gut shot depending on the type of round and the amount of internal damage done. Bleeding out is always a issue.
A shot to the extremities, assuming a tourniquet is applied promptly, is usually nonfatal, even if the damage is severe. A shot to the head is usually fatal, although if off to the side the bullet can enter and exit the skull without it necessarily being fatal.
It really depends what you are shot with, exactly where the projectile enters the body, and whether immediate aid is available.
---
### Author:  [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/6 "2023-02-06T03:09:48Z")
What Grrr said. There are a lot of factors that affect the speed with which gunshot wounds kill. The first GSW I encountered was less than a quarter mile from the ambulance, and he was dead before we arrived.
In a more recent case the ambulance was called for a woman with “abdominal pain increasing over several days.” Nobody mentioned she’d been shot in the belly.
---
### Author:  [@Nyvaak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nyvaak)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/7 "2023-02-06T03:17:59Z")
For GSWs in places other than the head, bleeding is usually the reason for death. If a bullet disrupts a major blood vessel that can happen in minutes. Similarly if a highly vascular organ is penetrated.
At other times bleeding may be slow, and hours (or even days) may elapse. Possibly bleeding will be so minor that a clot can form, giving enough time for infection to set in and be the cause of death (in the absence of modern medical care).
Death may ensue rapidly from other causes: collapsed lungs, tension pneumothorax (collapsed lung under pressure) or airway compromise.
---
### Author:  [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/8 "2023-02-06T04:25:05Z")
Elisabeth of Austria was stabbed with a thin 4 inch home-made dagger, but neither she nor her lady-in-waiting realized that she had been stabbed. She fell but was helped to her feet and walked a hundred yards to board a steamer. It was several minutes before anybody discovered the wound, and she didn’t die until 30 minutes later.
> **[Empress Elisabeth of Austria | Assassination](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria#Assassination)**
>
> In 1898, despite warnings of possible assassination attempts, the 60-year-old Elisabeth traveled incognito to Geneva, Switzerland. However, someone from the Hôtel Beau-Rivage revealed that the Empress of Austria was their guest.
> At 1:35 p.m. on Saturday 10 September 1898, Elisabeth and Countess Irma Sztáray de Sztára et Nagymihály, her lady-in-waiting, left the hotel on the shore of Lake Geneva on foot to catch the steamship Genève for Montreux. Since the empress despised processions, she insist...
---
### Author:  [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/9 "2023-02-06T05:59:44Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#):
>
> My only exposure to watching someone “die” comes from TV and movies where the bad guys will immediately fall dead from a single gunshot or a knife flung into the chest. Of course, if the good guy is hit, he’ll struggle on heroically, even if he eventually succumbs.
>
> I need to know if my snark at action movies is justified.
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> TV and films need to move the story along so when someone is shot they usually die immediately, but that’s not real life. It depends greatly on where you are shot.
There is also, of course, the fact that action movies don’t want to portray death in a realistic manner. It’s suddenly much less fun to watch and less morally unambiguous if the bad guys die in excruciating pain while crying out for their mothers; it makes them actual human beings it is possible to empathize with rather than caricatures of evil who conveniently die instant deaths punctuated by perhaps a single and by the plot deserved cry of pain. Conversely, the hero loses a lot of his or her conventionally defined heroic qualities when we see them dying in excruciating pain, crying out for their mother and voiding their bowels when they expire.
So yes, your snark at action movies is entirely justified.
---
### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/10 "2023-02-06T12:21:03Z")
Well, it’s better than opera where when someone is stabbed, instead of dying, they sing.
---
### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/11 "2023-02-06T13:09:42Z")
> [@Nyvaak](#):
>
> In a more recent case the ambulance was called for a woman with “abdominal pain increasing over several days.” Nobody mentioned she’d been shot in the belly.
This sounds like peritonitis, a massive internal infection that typically results from breaching the separation between the insides of the intestines and the abdominal cavity. Getting shot in the belly seems to happen often enough in television or movie portrayals. If a bullet tears through intestines but does not hit anything that causes rapid death (such as major blood vessels), it makes likely a death over several days from peritonitis.
---
### Author:  [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/12 "2023-02-06T14:14:15Z")
> [@Dissonance](#):
>
> There is also, of course, the fact that action movies don’t want to portray death in a realistic manner. It’s suddenly much less fun to watch and less morally unambiguous if the bad guys die in excruciating pain while crying out for their mothers;
I think it was Harlan Ellison in an TV critic column he wrote, who mentioned this about crime shows… “Have you ever _tried_ to have a casual conversation in a room with a dead body?”
> [@Nyvaak](#):
>
> In a more recent case the ambulance was called for a woman with “abdominal pain increasing over several days.” Nobody mentioned she’d been shot in the belly.
I think it was _Lonesome Dove_ where one bad guy is just out of range taunting the guy they have trapped on the plains. The fellow judges the angle, shoot an upward trajectory, and hits the bad guy dead center in the stomach. That night the injured baddie lies moaning and slowly dying around the campfire while his buddies drink and party.
I guess the OP’s answer is - what do you mean by dead? As mentioned, consciousness stops if the brain stops getting blood, i.e. blood pressure drops. The brain apparently is the biggest consumer of energy in the body. One figure I saw was that it uses 1/3 of all the nutrition we consume, and a commensurate amount of oxygen. Thus, cutting off the supply will seriously affect its function. And not being supplied sufficiently for a few minutes, it is irretrievably non-functional. I can imagine that a wound traumatic enough to reduce blood pressure in the brain to zero in seconds probably can’t be effectively repaired within the precious few minutes needed.
The typical Hollywood injury is shot through the shoulder - the scriptwriters are smart enough to avoid implying the major organs of the torso are compromised, but as also noted - there are some major blood vessels in that area. even if well away from the heart, it could hit one of those same blood vessels feeding the lungs, or an arm; if you can bleed out quickly from a severed arm, you can bleed out from that blood supply being cut open in the shoulder - not to mention risk to airways or lungs, blood filling the lungs, etc.
And as has been discussed frequently, you do not get hit on the head and be unconscious for minutes or hours, only to wake up perfectly fine and able to resume chasing the bad guys. If you don’t get back up within a minute, you should be treated for severe concussion - instead of mild concussion.
---
### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/13 "2023-02-06T16:43:35Z")
There are a few real incidents that were [meticulously recorded.](https://www.jfk.org/page-timeline/) John F. Kennedy was shot in the head at 12:30 p.m. and pronounced dead at 1:00, although he probably died several minutes before that. Lee Harvey Oswald was shot in the liver at 11:21 a.m. and pronounced dead while still in surgery at 1:07 p.m.
Robert F. Kennedy’s death from bullet wounds [took much longer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Robert_F._Kennedy#:~:text=On%20June%205%2C%201968%2C%20shortly,a.m.%20PDT%20the%20following%20day.), and he was conscious immediately after the shooting.
If a major artery is severed (i.e. knife wound) the victim can bleed out in [2-5 minutes.](https://emergencycare.hsi.com/blog/stop-the-bleed-month)
---
### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/14 "2023-02-06T16:50:28Z")
> [@md-2000](#):
>
> That night the injured baddie lies moaning and slowly dying around the campfire while his buddies drink and party.
There is a scene in “Unforgiven” where the gunmen shoot the first of two targets, whose name is Davey, and the poor kid lies crying for several minutes before finally dying, long enough the gunmen yell at his friends to give him some water. It’s a genuinely disturbing scene.
The OP’s question is perhaps more clearly answered, though, in the horrifying opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. Some people get shot and just drop to the ground, dead in a few seconds. Others take a hit and keep on going. Others get hit and lie screaming in agony. The truth is gross.
---
### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/15 "2023-02-06T16:52:25Z")
How fast does one die when shot or stabbed?
Having worked in ER trauma units in both Baltimore and Milwaukee (along with other less chaotic urban locations), I can only say it depends. Seconds to years, basically. Depending on what got injured, underlying conditions, etc etc
---
### Author:  [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/16 "2023-02-06T17:26:34Z")
The 1994 book _How We Die_ has a moving and scary description of a knife attack on a young girl, standing with her family while watching a parade. He describes the father holding her in his arms, looking into her eyes for the minute or so while her life ebbed away. It didn’t take long, as she was trying to process what was happening to her. (I’m trying to remember this from memory, but it’s a description that really stuck with me.)
How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter, New Edition [https://a.co/d/fAFh4yj](https://a.co/d/fAFh4yj)
---
### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/17 "2023-02-06T17:43:13Z")
President Garfield took like a month to die from being shot. It was the infection that finally got him (and the ham handed shit fingered “doctors” who insisted that they MUST get the bullet out.)
Gabby Giffords got shot in the head in 2011 and she’s still very much alive (though not without some brain damage).
---
### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/18 "2023-02-06T18:54:28Z")
> [@Dissonance](#):
>
> So yes, your snark at action movies is entirely justified.
My spousal unit disagrees with you, but thank you for the validation!
---
### Author:  [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/19 "2023-02-06T19:01:33Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#):
>
> I can only say it depends. Seconds to years,
So it’s not entirely out of the question that someone would drop immediately and that would be that. What prompted this question was a scene in _Road House_ where Dalton threw a knife at one of the bad guys, it embedded in his chest, and he fell dead - it seemed kinda quick to me. And yes, I know a movie has to move the action along…
---
### Author:  [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2023, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358/20 "2023-02-06T19:32:02Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#):
>
> So it’s not entirely out of the question that someone would drop immediately and that would be that. What prompted this question was a scene in _Road House_ where Dalton threw a knife at one of the bad guys, it embedded in his chest, and he fell dead - it seemed kinda quick to me. And yes, I know a movie has to move the action along…
Good question. Presumably in true Hollywood style the knife blade was up-down but still managed to slip between the ribs based on the momentum of a throw…
So what would happen with a knife into the heart? or severing a major artery nearby? I presume if not pulled out immediately, they heart would still pump enough blood to maintain pressure for several seconds at least and the person would slowly lose consciousness. Location, location, location…
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-does-one-die-when-shot-or-stabbed/979358.md?page=2)