Once a stack of papers is flipped around a lot, can it paper-cut the throat?

Factual Questions
1

A stapled set of print-outs that I flipped through many times and wrote on. It’s a different feel from a stack of papers just taken out to put into the printer.

I was reading it and as I flipped it it touched my neck a few times. Could it have produced a faint paper-cut or reach the larynx?

Or is it that if it did reach the larynx, it wouldn’t be faint?

2

Paper can deliver small paper cuts or larger paper cuts. I don’t think it needs to be pristine.

As for “reaching the larynx,” feel your throat. There is a thick layer of skin, subcutaneous fat, and muscle over the cartilage of the larynx. Plus, paper cuts hurt like a SOB. You could no more do that than use the edge of a sheet of paper to cut deeply and unnoticeably into raw, skin-on chicken.

3

Sort of related is when Mythbusters tested whether an ordinary playing card could injure a person if thrown fast enough. Even a played card thrown by a machine at 155MPH didn’t cause much injury, although that is a little different from a paper cut.

4

There is an episode of 1000 Ways to Die about a prisoner who made a hearts-and-diamonds bomb out of a deck of playing cards that he put in a piece of pipe, mixed with water, and placed on a radiator to heat up. The goal was to blow a hole in the wall so he could escape. Anyway, the show had an EMT on as an expert who claimed that the pieces of playing card could act as shrapnel and lodge themselves in the decedent’s skin. (No, I don’t take the show as definitive science; I just have a morbid streak a mile wide and I like feeling superior.)

5

Was it a 155mph launch at the throat, or the forearm or another area more capable of withstanding pain?

What if the cut was superficial? Could it open up a hole in the skin that disrupts air flow through the larynx? Also, a few hours after the paper touched my neck, I tried to look in a mirror but the lighting was poor and the upward tilt of the head to reveal the neck makes for an impossible angle to examine the throat. I didn’t ask someone else to check for me. Has too much time elapsed such that even if the superficial mark has disappeared, I can’t find out whether I suffered an internal injury?

6

Not remotely. The larynx is a tough old chunk of gristle.

Yes you can: a piece of paper touched your throat, doing nothing, or almost nothing (it wasn’t even likely that it would). A week later, you can’t tell if it did anything and you’re still alive, therefore, it’s even more unlikely that anything is wrong. With your throat, anyway.

7

1000 ways to die had an episode where a diver had been put in a hyperbaric chamber because she came up from the depths too fast. A janitor opened the valve and let the pressure out and she basically exploded. After seeing that episode I have a lot of effort taking **any **of their episodes seriously.

8

Has anyone ever told you that you have a very vivid (and unusual) imagination?

9

I’m having trouble visualizing this situation. I like working with stuff on paper, and I’ve never been in a situation where it would even be possible to get a paper cut on my neck.

Anyway:

  1. You would not have gotten a paper cut simply by flipping papers. You would have to somehow have brushed your neck with a flat sheet of paper moving in a direction parallel to the edges. Paper moving up and down will not give you a paper cut, it’s the shearing action along an edge of a sheet of paper that does it.

  2. Paper that is not fresh is not likely to cause paper cuts anyway, because the edges have usually been weakened through handling and are not stiff enough to cause cuts.

  3. Paper cuts are not very deep, paper is not strong enough to cause a deep wound.

  4. Even extremely minor paper cuts tend to be very painful because of the mechanism of the injury. You would have noticed if you had been injured.

  5. A very deep injury is required to reach the larynx, there is a lot of tough tissue surrounding it which would not be cut by a paper cut.

  6. An injury so minor that you did not notice it would not have caused any serious damage.

  7. If you are that worried about it, cover your neck with some soapy water, close your mouth and blow as hard as you can. If you see any bubbles come out of your neck, see a doctor.

  8. Seek a different form of medical attention. This obsession over improbable injuries is not normal (I should know, I am prone to it too). I mean, you’re worried a paper cut penetrated your throat? Take a step back and think about that.

10

It’s Wikipedia, but:
Subsequent investigation by forensic pathologists determined D4, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, violently exploded due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine were ejected, as were all of his limbs. Simultaneously, his remains were expelled through the narrow trunk opening left by the jammed chamber door, less than 60 centimetres (24 in) in diameter. Fragments of his body were found scattered about the rig. One part was even found lying on the rig’s derrick, 10 metres (30 ft) directly above the chambers. His death was most likely instantaneous and painless.

11

The OP is also the same person who has another thread asking if they’ve possibly been lobotomised, or if medications they were given in early adolescence have permanently damaged their brain, because they have issues with brainfarts occasionally. I feel suggestion 8 might be the most relevant one in this whole thread.

12

I’m not saying 1000 Ways to Die should be taken seriously, but this was basically exactly what happened to Diver 4 in the incident Ludovic links to, the Byford Dolphin diving bell accident.

13

Well, I guess I stand corrected. I didn’t think it was possible. However, I guess going from 9 atm to 1 is rather different than going from 1 to 0 (i.e. a vacuum) which is what was in the back of my mind. Weird.