sleerash (sleerash) wrote in little_details,
sleerash
sleerash
little_details

Tearing an artery barehanded

Hello:

I’m writing a fight scene in which the protagonist, after wounding —but not killing— an enemy in the neck with a sharp stick, comes to a close position to him, put his fingers inside the wound a tear an artery with his nails.

I read several articles about this topic (with the keywords rip, tear, throat, wound, nails, barehand), and is always a no. But the question is: can be possible IF there is a previous wound in the neck?

Thanks in advance; and please excuse my poor English.

Best regards,
JMB.
Tags: ~medicine: injuries (misc)
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  • 11 comments

Besttabaqui

March 25 2016, 15:41:53 UTC 4 years ago

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Hrmmmmmm. From reading around online, it seems the artery is pretty tough, though obviously not immune to a sharp knife. I thought this was interesting: http://mrgiesbrechthgi.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/5/8/17585855/arteriesveinscapillaries.pdf I hadn't known that about the three layers.

It seems to me that, if your protagonist leaps on their enemy and jams their finger(s) into a neck wound, they will have to scrabble around trying to *find* the artery (there's a lot of stuff in there), and then attempt to rip it open with possibly-not-very-sharp nails (unless they're some kind of were-beast or something). There will be blood, which is *very* slippery, and also the enemy flailing around, fighting them off, etc. If they do manage to find the artery, I don't think they'll be able to rip it open, but *will* be able to grab it and yank it *out*, thus rupturing it through sheer force.

Be prepared for a lot of mess and noise and blood all over the place, and the enemy taking a few minutes to die, all the while thrashing around and making noise. Have fun! :)