# What were the signs of a ruptured femoral artery?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-signs-of-a-ruptured-femoral-artery/800295
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 31, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-signs-of-a-ruptured-femoral-artery/800295 "2017-10-31T16:39:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-signs-of-a-ruptured-femoral-artery/800295/1 "2017-10-31T16:39:53Z")
Bears’ tight end Zack Miller suffered a gruesome injury in Sunday’s game, dislocating his knee and tearing the popliteal artery. The training staff recognized the severity of the injury and got him immediately to a hospital where they basically saved his leg from being amputated. Question: what were the signs that the training staff saw that told them that the artery was ruptured? How did they (fortunately) know this so quickly?
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2017, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-signs-of-a-ruptured-femoral-artery/800295/2 "2017-10-31T17:01:11Z")
Torn artery implies internal bleeding on a large to massive scale - I would suspect rapid and massive swelling would be a tip off, and the swollen area might be darkly colored due to blood being the cause of said swelling.
There could also be a lack of pulse below the site of the arterial damage.
There might also be signs of significant blood loss overall - paleness, dizziness, dropping blood pressure, rapid pulse, shortness of breath, and so on which would indicate significant blood loss from _somewhere_ and under the circumstances the injured knee would be the logical place to start looking.
I base this partly on the knee injury I sustained as a teenager. The docs were preoccupied with the quantity and rapidly of swelling and frequently took a pulse in my ankle. As it happened, I did have some bleeding into the joint with that injury but it wasn’t from an artery and did not require surgery.
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### Author:  [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-signs-of-a-ruptured-femoral-artery/800295/3 "2017-11-02T00:36:28Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Torn artery implies internal bleeding on a large to massive scale - I would suspect rapid and massive swelling would be a tip off, and the swollen area might be darkly colored due to blood being the cause of said swelling.
>
> There could also be a lack of pulse below the site of the arterial damage.
Ex-EMT here
Broomstick pretty much nailed it in one. the lack of a pulse below the injury is the biggest warning sign under the circumstances. The swelling will take at least a few minutes to become obvious.
Checking pulses distal to obvious bone and joint injuries is part of most EMS protocols for handling such incidents.