# So I Was Shot By An Arrow....



## Asterisk

The protagonist in my WIP is shot in her shoulder by an arrow. I was writing the scene with great confidence when I realized I have no idea what her "sidekick" should do to remove the arrow. They don't have a lot of time. He already has a special drugs that will numb her. So with that said...

- How will he remove the arrow?
- How long would it take?
- How would he take care of the wound?

(Bonus Question How long would it take for the wound to heal?

All answers greatly appreciated. Thank you!


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## Ireth

I think the "Ask me about archery" thread had a post on this... if the character isn't armored, the arrow might just pass right through. So it might not be a question of "how do I get the arrow out?" so much as "how do I stop the bleeding?"


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## Asterisk

> I think the "Ask me about archery" thread had a post on this... if the character isn't armored, the arrow might just pass right through. So it might not be a question of "how do I get the arrow out?" so much as "how do I stop the bleeding?"



Well then, I need to change my question to "How do I stop the bleeding?" 

Do you think, though, that there is a chance it _wouldn't_ pass through, especially if it was shot from a short distance?


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## Ireth

Asterisk said:


> Well then, I need to change my question to "How do I stop the bleeding?"
> 
> Do you think, though, that there is a chance it _wouldn't_ pass through, especially if it was shot from a short distance?



If the character is wearing chainmail, I think the arrow might get tangled in the links, especially due to the spinning motion of an arrow in flight. That would keep it from going right through, and be really nasty to remove because of all the tangled metal. I'm not too sure about other kinds of armor, though.


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## ThinkerX

As somebody who picked up a shoulder injury from piling up on a bicycle this summer...



> (Bonus Question How long would it take for the wound to heal?



Yee-freaking-ouch!

Shoulder injuries are no fun at all.  If the victim is older, could have permanent shoulder pain and constricted movement.  If younger, good shape, fair bit of competent medical attention, might have full movement back in a month or two.

Common test involves lifting the arm in question.  Can you lift it above your head from the front?  From the side? Can you stick your hand in your opposite back pocket?  In my case I was unable to lift my arm above shoulder height for weeks without severe pain...at least from the front.  Of course, this is an effect of dislocation on an older person.  In my younger days, I felt the pain from similiar incidents for only a few weeks.  A piercing would would require the muscle itself to heal.  Don't know about that, but the movement issues would probably be much the same.  And...lifting the arm is one thing.  Lifting anything else heavier than a small book or coffee cup with the afflicted arm probably ain't gunna happen.


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## Penpilot

No expert, you might not want to remove the arrow right away. The arrow may be plugging the wound and stopping the bleeding. So it may be best to leave the arrow in until the wounded person can see a doctor or until they can get to safety and not be rushed. You might try googling up knife wounds. If someone was stabbed, with the knife left in, it might be similar.


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## buyjupiter

Asterisk said:


> Well then, I need to change my question to "How do I stop the bleeding?"
> 
> Do you think, though, that there is a chance it _wouldn't_ pass through, especially if it was shot from a short distance?



Is it a hunting bow, a longbow, or a crossbow? All three would produce different results.

If it's a regular hunting bow, the arrows that go along with those tend to have barbed hooks at the edge nearest the shaft of the arrow to prevent an arrow from going straight through. You'd have to ask those with hunting experience if the reasoning behind that is one of you need it like that to prevent the arrow from going straight through to prevent the animal from just walking it off, as in, the barbs lead to extra pain, leads to slowing the animal down as it tries to get it out...or if the barbs are decorative. I've just seen enough arrow heads and arrows in general to see that they have these barbs that would probably dig into flesh, not just pass through. (Crossbow bolts, from what I've seen of modern crossbows suggest a lack of barbing, at least to the extent of a regular arrow. This may be because they were designed to go through heavy armor and soldiers let bad medicinal practices or bleeding to death kill their victims for them.)

As for removing it, I imagine the first step would be to see how closely the arrow hit to dangerous areas, i.e. the heart/lungs, major blood vessels. Depending on how deep it is embedded, the time it would take would be entirely dependent upon a few things: experience with removing arrows, experience with wound care, how close it is to the major organs or important blood vessels. If it's a shallower hit, then it should be possible to remove it in a few minutes or so. If the arrow has gone all the way through, from what I've read, breaking the shaft of the arrow and pulling out the back end (with the feathers) would come first and then pushing/pulling on the arrowhead would come next.

I imagine, time-wise in a worst case scenario, it could take half an hour to an hour depending on how badly things went with the removal process and how nervous your sidekick is.

I've seen serious scars take upwards of a month to heal. It depends on the depth of the wound and how young they are, and if there's any magic used. If it's a shallow hit, I'd say within a month for a youngish person, six weeks for someone older maybe? If it's a deeper hit (all the way through), then I'd go at least six weeks before it looks/feels better. Maybe two or so weeks for it to stop twinging if you have a macho character. It would probably take six-eight weeks to heal up, and that would be dependent upon how much strain was put upon the area, and how old a person is. Straight healing takes forever!

I hope that helps!


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## Malik

99% of the time, a hit to the shoulder would pass through. 

I have never shot a human with a bow (wow, there are a lot of qualifiers there when you think about it) but I have put a steel broadhead hunting arrow through the shoulder of a man-sized deer -- which has a lot more muscle around its shoulder than a man -- with a 55-lb. recurve bow at under 12 yards. The arrow penetrated the rib cage behind one shoulder, passed through both lungs nicking the heart, and penetrated the other shoulder, fracturing the shoulderblade and passing through the animal completely. 

I have shot many deer with similar points of impact with the same weapon and arrow type, and the results are consistent. Pass-through. Every time.

We had a long discussion about this in this thread.


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## Malik

I should add, too, that on humans, ballistic trauma to the shoulder is a hideous thing. There are a stupid amount of muscles and tendons in there; it's as complicated as the knee joint. The trope about a shoulder wound "just winging him" is a Hollywood fabrication. If you take an arrow through your shoulder, you're going to be crippled for life. It will never heal "right." 

A broadhead hunting arrow leaves a hole that you can shove a golf ball through. They do catastrophic amounts of damage. An arrow wound to the shoulder could result in a shattered scapula, fractured ribs, collapse and coma from trauma to the brachial plexus, a nicked lung filling up with blood (which you can't fix without surgery), a tension pneumothorax (also not fixable, minus a catheter and needle rig and specialized training), and if the arrowhead so much as scrapes the brachial artery, the target is done in minutes. They'll bleed out into their body cavity like pulling the drain on a bathtub; one side of their chest will turn black and distend. There is nothing you can do about it at that point except ask for their laptop password so you can start erasing their porn. 

Seriously, though. You're down to minutes with a brachial artery hit. Five minutes, tops. Two, if you have a wide entry and exit hole. You'd better have a really, really good cleric or monk handy who has a chit to cash in with their gods, because the "real" way to save someone at that point would be to get in there with a hemostat clamp and pack off the artery (remember the femoral artery sequence in Black Hawk Down? Yeah. Pretty much that.) 



Spoiler: GRAPHIC VIDEO



DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH.[video=youtube_share;gixRgsPFR7g]http://youtu.be/gixRgsPFR7g[/video]



And then you'll need to rig up a couple of liters of Ringers or saline to replace the fluids lost. And once you've stabilized him, you'd have to figure out how to do an arterial graft under austere conditions. Or get him to someone who can.








The only wound in the shoulder that would not do lethal or crippling damage is a grazing wound above the collarbone, through the trapezius.

But, on the other hand, very few readers are going to know this stuff so don't sweat it. Some fantasy author should have humans evolve with a couple of places where they could get shot/stabbed/etc. with no other ill effects than, "Ow!" Because, evolution.


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## Malik

I am not a doctor, but I've had combat trauma training. This is how I understand the shoulder, superimposed on the X-ray from above.


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## Svrtnsse

Malik said:


> I should add, too, that on humans, ballistic trauma to the shoulder is a hideous thing.



Back in June I pulled a muscle in my shoulder/pectoral region somewhere while bowling. It's a silly "wound" that I got from being drunk and stupid, but it still pains me now half a year later.

(I've had a bit of physiotherapy and it's finally getting better)


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## buyjupiter

Malik said:


> A broadhead hunting arrow leaves a hole that you can shove a golf ball through.



I'm guessing that in modern hunting (or use of bows & arrows) that broadhead arrows are the most common?

I believe from the archaeological evidence I've seen that the kind of arrowheads I was referencing are more common to small game hunting than going after deer (or humans). Which would make sense, since I've usually seen Native American arrowheads coming from areas where big game hunting is rather sparse. We have lots of rabbits and native pig-like things, but not too many deer/bear. And from what I can tell geologically of the area, and from the historical record, that's been true for a long time.

So maybe, given that people shooting bows and arrows, would you know, actually take the time to grab the "right" kind of arrow, having it with barbs and such that you'd use for small game wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. 

Unless, of course, the people doing the shooting are evil bastards aiming for the highest amount of pain and suffering.


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## Malik

I use these:







They kill really well.

Compound-bow users use hunting tips with 3, or 4 blades, that look like this:







I can't speak to their efficiency, as I don't need training wheels on my bow.


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## SeverinR

Malik said:


> I should add, too, that on humans, ballistic trauma to the shoulder is a hideous thing. There are a stupid amount of muscles and tendons in there; it's as complicated as the knee joint. The trope about a shoulder wound "just winging him" is a Hollywood fabrication. If you take an arrow through your shoulder, you're going to be crippled for life. It will never heal "right."
> 
> A broadhead hunting arrow leaves a hole that you can shove a golf ball through. They do catastrophic amounts of damage. An arrow wound to the shoulder could result in a shattered scapula, fractured ribs, collapse and coma from trauma to the brachial plexus, a nicked lung filling up with blood (which you can't fix without surgery), a tension pneumothorax (also not fixable, minus a catheter and needle rig and specialized training), and if the arrowhead so much as scrapes the brachial artery, the target is done in minutes. They'll bleed out into their body cavity like pulling the drain on a bathtub; one side of their chest will turn black and distend. There is nothing you can do about it at that point except ask for their laptop password so you can start erasing their porn.
> 
> Seriously, though. You're down to minutes with a brachial artery hit. Five minutes, tops. Two, if you have a wide entry and exit hole. You'd better have a really, really good cleric or monk handy who has a chit to cash in with their gods, because the "real" way to save someone at that point would be to get in there with a hemostat clamp and pack off the artery (remember the femoral artery sequence in Black Hawk Down? Yeah. Pretty much that.)
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: GRAPHIC VIDEO
> 
> 
> 
> DO NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH.[video=youtube_share;gixRgsPFR7g]http://youtu.be/gixRgsPFR7g[/video]
> 
> 
> 
> And then you'll need to rig up a couple of liters of Ringers or saline to replace the fluids lost. And once you've stabilized him, you'd have to figure out how to do an arterial graft under austere conditions. Or get him to someone who can.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The only wound in the shoulder that would not do lethal or crippling damage is a grazing wound above the collarbone, through the trapezius.
> 
> But, on the other hand, very few readers are going to know this stuff so don't sweat it. Some fantasy author should have humans evolve with a couple of places where they could get shot/stabbed/etc. with no other ill effects than, "Ow!" Because, evolution.


Looking at the xray, you could say:"There's room for an arrow to pass through without hitting bone. Now pass a small garden hose through the bones, that is the brachial artery. There is a very small window to pass an field tip arrow through, a broadhead-no way.
Hit any bone, 6-8 weeks of not moving the shoulder or arm much at all. Hit the artery=dead very quickly, 
Fastest death wounds: Juglar vein/Carotid artery(neck), Femoral vein(groin and legs) Brachial artery(armpit & shoulder)


I think field tips were common tip for soldiers arrows, probably cheapest to make also. Broad heads do more damage to a person but less likely to penetrate plate armor as far. HUnting arrows against unarmored person, probably would do the most damage.

To remove the arrow, cut the arrow head off and remove the shaft. Removal could cause excess bloodloss.  Harder and more painful, break off the tip by hand. The pressure to snap the arrow is placed on the injured tissue.

Arrow heads of the middle ages:
http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/13917/wm/pd2869917.jpg
I believe the long spike tip(#2) was for plate armor, drive a small spike through the armor as far as you could.
#1 and #3rd are field tips, the next 3 are broad heads, the bottom 2 I don't know. I'm thinking they might be hunting tips for certain game.

http://www.medieval-fightclub.com/categories/Archery/Arrowheads/
This link shows the c arrow head as a crescent broadhead.


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## Nihal

SeverinR said:


> Arrow heads of the middle ages:
> http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/13917/wm/pd2869917.jpg
> I believe the long spike tip(#2) was for plate armor, drive a small spike through the armor as far as you could.
> #1 and #3rd are field tips, the next 3 are broad heads, the bottom 2 I don't know. I'm thinking they might be hunting tips for certain game.
> 
> Historical medieval and ancient arrowheads
> This link shows the c arrow head as a crescent broadhead.



The C shaped arrow is a karimata, know as "rope cutter" (no, it wasn't used to cut ropes). It has a cutting edge on the inside, sometimes outside too, and it was used to hunt large animals and on battle. I believe it was used to cut sails too, but I'm not sure.

The other one seems to be one of those used to set things on fire; you stuffed the opening with cloth dipped in something flammable and lighted it. I don't remember the name of this arrowhead.


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## Guy

Malik said:


> The arrow penetrated the rib cage behind one shoulder, passed through both lungs nicking the heart, and penetrated the other shoulder, fracturing the shoulderblade and passing through the animal completely.
> 
> I have shot many deer with similar points of impact with the same weapon and arrow type, and the results are consistent. Pass-through. Every time.[/URL]


When you say pass through, do you mean the arrow head went all the way through or the entire arrow passed through and kept going?


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## Malik

Guy said:


> When you say pass through, do you mean the arrow head went all the way through or the entire arrow passed through and kept going?



The entire arrow. A complete pass-through is so common in big-game bowhunting that recovery of the animal is often dependent upon recovery of the arrow. The blood and residue on the arrow will indicate the type of hit, which helps the hunter anticipate the animal's reaction. Without an arrow recovery, tracking the animal is extremely difficult.


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## Asterisk

Wow wow wow... thank you all SO MUCH for the information! I appreciate this so much!


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## skip.knox

So, Malik or others (great pic, btw), where can we have our humans take a hit, be it knife cut or arrow, and be "just winged"? It'd be handy to have a could of places like that in a hip pocket when we want the hero to take some damage without being crippled.

My own contribution: it's pretty easy to have your arrow shot do just exactly the damage you want, so long as you have the flexibility to armor your character accordingly. So, for example, there are multiple accounts of Crusaders being stuck like porcupines from Turkish bows. This was not because of their mail but because of the layers of tightly-wound linen worn underneath the armor. Turkish arrows, shot from some distance and on the run, could penetrate the chain mail but would just bury themselves in the linen and stick there.

One other point of reference, I have a picture from a 17thc engraving showing a barber-surgeon cutting what looks to be a crossbow bolt out of a fellow's leg. Nearby sits a fire and a hot iron, presumably to close the wound after the bolt is cut out. And yes, the surgeon is in there digging.


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## Malik

It is really hard to kill someone with a knife. Seriously. Unless you know exactly what you're aiming for -- and get it -- knife wounds pretty much just slow someone down. So a character could take several stabs from a small knife and recover after a couple of months.

The problem with arrows and swords is that they make horrific wounds, causing amounts of trauma that most authors can't effectively visualize. I've posted arrow trauma before. Here's a longsword vs. a pig carcass.






Fighting with medieval warswords, from a medical perspective, might as well be fighting with chainsaws.

As far as penetrative wounds, anything more than a grazing wound and you're screwed. Something that creases a muscle -- say, bicep, trapezius, the fleshy part of the thigh, the buttocks -- would be survivable and a pain in the ass but not life-threatening. Even a graze on the neck if it's not too deep. Once you get penetration, though, this goes out the window. 

The human body is packed pretty tightly with things that you need, and the super-fit, efficient body types that we all like our characters to have (because we all have them, of course, and we write what we know, right? ) are, ironically, very damageable. 

So the only exception to this would be if the person getting wounded is really fat. Visceral fat surrounds organs and pushes them away from each other. You could shoot or stab a really fat person right through the chest and conceivably not hit anything vital.

What I use in my books is not stab wounds or even sword wounds -- my MC is a former fencing champion, and he wears a lot of armor, so he's really good at not getting stabbed or cut -- but the incidental damage from fighting for his life, even when he wins, lays him up for weeks: broken fingers, pulled muscles, slipped discs, hyperextended joints, headaches that last for days, and the kind of nasty black bruises that never seem to go away.

Of course, none of this is as sexy as being shot with an arrow, and 99% of your readers won't know any different, so really, go nuts.


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## Malik

And armor, of course, was everything. 

If you want your character to get a superficial wound, put him or her in armor. That's what it was for.


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## Jabrosky

Malik said:


> The human body is packed pretty tightly with things that you need, and the super-fit, efficient body types that we all like our characters to have (because we all have them, of course, and we write what we know, right? ) are, ironically, very damageable.
> 
> So the only exception to this would be if the person getting wounded is really fat. Visceral fat surrounds organs and pushes them away from each other. You could shoot or stab a really fat person right through the chest and conceivably not hit anything vital.


I think I know just the sort of tumblr bloggers who would love to hear that.


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## Snowpoint

I saw on TV last night a moderatly chubby guy is stabbed in the chest. Right on top of the heart area. Saved by like a centimeter. Guy is out of the ER in like an hour.

Basically, in medieval times, an arrow anywhere is death. Even if the arrow doesn't kill you, you become much easier to hunt down.


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## skip.knox

@Malik: thanks for the useful post. I've got a character who has yet to appear in any story, who received a wound in the shoulder while still in his prime. Actually, it wasn't even a wound, it was a muscle torn in the heat of a battle. It didn't cripple him but it leaves him with pain whenever he tries to swing a sword. He can do it, but it hurts like blazes. For a long time, he tried to hide the fact that he was not 100% but eventually it catches up with him.

I thought this character up as a result of a rotator cuff tear. The thing hung around with me for years. Ruined my career as a major league pitcher. 

But I've thought of this fellow off and on for a long time. I'm sure a great many soldiers accumulated injuries that affected their abilities in battle. I thought including that in a character could add a dimension missing from many. Not a missing hand or anything obvious like that. Just that damned rotator cuff.


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## Malik

There was a movie made back in the 70's called _North Dallas Forty_ in which Nick Nolte plays an aging professional football player. And by "aging" I mean "in his 30's." There are scenes in that movie where he's trying to sleep, or he's up in the middle of the night cracking his back and trying to get muscles to unkink and bones and sockets to sit right, or lying in a tub of ice water drinking whiskey by the glass. My buddies in the Army who are in their 40's -- and some in their 30's -- are like this. And we're like this with modern medicine, space-age supplementation, and an encyclopedic knowledge of physiology and training. I would imagine that any professional fighter, whether he's a soldier or a sport fighter or pro athlete, would be in tatters by his mid-30's, even without being wounded per se. It's a short, hard career.

I'd love to read about a fighter with a shoulder injury from his heyday. I hope you work him into a book someday.


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## skip.knox

I know that movie. A real football story can be found in the 1980s movie, Disposable Heroes. Very sad and sobering. 

I had only thought about the physical difficulties entailed from the injury, but it would be worth exploring also the psychological aspect. Just as football players who can no longer play can find it difficult to adjust, what would it be like for a knight who could no longer fight or hunt?

I'm not so fascinated as to make this a main character, but I do think he fits in somewhere. Maybe as a Duncan-type (Dune).


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## Guy

Malik said:


> It is really hard to kill someone with a knife. Seriously. Unless you know exactly what you're aiming for -- and get it -- knife wounds pretty much just slow someone down.


Well, depending on a few things. One sweep from a boxcutter could disembowel someone. Ripping the blade off to the side as it's withdrawn. A stab from a gladius would be a lot worse than a stab from a stiletto. 



> As far as penetrative wounds, anything more than a grazing wound and you're screwed. Something that creases a muscle -- say, bicep, trapezius, the fleshy part of the thigh, the buttocks -- would be survivable and a pain in the ass but not life-threatening. Even a graze on the neck if it's not too deep. Once you get penetration, though, this goes out the window.


There are historical accounts of people surviving multiple stab wounds through the body from rapiers. Jim Bowie took the blade of a sword cane through his chest, where it snapped off and lodged. He beat the crap out of the guy before passing out, but he survived it. Cole Younger suffered eleven gunshot wounds in 1876. He was captured and jailed, 19th century medicine in a 19th century jail, but he survived. Somewhere I've got an account of arrow extraction in Medieval Europe, but I don't have it handy right now. I'll post it later. 


> The human body is packed pretty tightly with things that you need, and the super-fit, efficient body types that we all like our characters to have (because we all have them, of course, and we write what we know, right? ) are, ironically, very damageable.
> 
> So the only exception to this would be if the person getting wounded is really fat. Visceral fat surrounds organs and pushes them away from each other. You could shoot or stab a really fat person right through the chest and conceivably not hit anything vital.


There is some evidence to suggest gladiators were a bit portly for this very reason.


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## Guy

Found it. _The Great Warbow_ by Matthew Strickland and Robert Hardy is an excellent book on the subject of archery in Medieval Europe. Starting on page 284, they talk about Henry V taking an arrow to the face at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. They quote the prince's doctor, John Bradmore, giving the doctor's account of how he extracted the arrow and cured the prince. He said the arrow enters on the left side of Henry's nose and penetrated to a depth of six inches. The quote from the doctor is extensive, so I won't place it here, but he essentially performed a surgical extraction on the prince, sans anesthesia, of course, but Henry lived on for another nineteen years. The same chapter details numerous men getting killed in hunting and shooting accidents. Point being, getting shot doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence.


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## Shockley

There's a great Ming account of a Han surgery where a man was wounded by a poisoned arrow in the arm. After extracting the arrow, they peeled back the skin and scraped the bone clean in an attempt to cleanse the poison and then sewing him back up. The patient was executed within the year by the force that wounded him, so there's no telling the long-term ramifications of that kind of surgery, but it's interesting nonetheless.

 Anyway, Henry V's survival from that kind of wound seems to be rarer than death. I'm thinking specifically of Richard the Lionheart - 'winged,' took the time to salute the man who shot them, went back to his tent and dropped dead soon after.


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## Caged Maiden

As an archer, I just want to add some information about arrows in general


There are different types of arrows.  
A war arrow is about 36" long and has a quarter inch shaft.  It does major damage because the pull cn be upwards of 150 pounds and it's shot over  long distance.  

A hunting arrow will be probably 70 or less pound pull but be a razor sharp edge used to cause maximum bleeding.  

Soldiers will be using war bows from a keep wall, whereas a scout or hunter will have a hunting bow.

a crossbow is another matter.  High pull poundage 75-150 pounds, but it will be a bolt with a bodkin, most likely.  Some were stuck on with feces or barely stuck on at all, meaning the wound will quickly fester from bacteria or the point will be left in the wound if you pull the quarrel out.  The solution is to push it through.


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## Guy

Shockley said:
			
		

> Richard the Lionheart - 'winged,' took the time to salute the man who shot them, went back to his tent and dropped dead soon after.


Actually, it penetrated his side pretty deeply. The infection took several days to kill him.


			
				Caged Maiden said:
			
		

> a crossbow is another matter. High pull poundage 75-150 pounds,


Medieval crossbows had much higher draw weights than that. Depending on what they were made of and how they were spanned, they could have draw weights of 300 or 400 pounds or more. One specimen from late 15th/early 16th century that was spanned with a windlass had a draw weight of 1,200 pounds.


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## Caged Maiden

yeah, but those took a winch to draw.  Most of those high poundage ones were mounted like turret guns, they weren't something you could reload quickly.  I was speaking of a handheld crossbow that one might carry for protection.  My friend has a hundred + pound crossbow I almost pulled, but the stirrup was hinged rather than fixed, which impeded my efforts.  I'd bet most men could pull a 150 pound crossbow with a fixed stirrup.  anything more than that, though, would have a winch system and be used as a wall of archers, not a single person with a bow.

Also, one more thing to note...

Recently, a woman was shot with an arrow at my local dog park.  The arrow came from a compound bow where someone was shooting targets in their yard and missed.  She got struck in the back of the shoulder and walked around for several minutes before someone kindly pointed out, "Um.. miss... you have an arrow sticking out of your back."

She said she thought she was struck by a rogue tennis ball from someone playing with their dog and didn't realize she was injured.  

Just an interesting tidbit...


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## Shockley

> Actually, it penetrated his side pretty deeply. The infection took several days to kill him.



 Incorrect on the wound. Richard was hit in the shoulder, though his surgeon butchered him pretty badly all over trying to dig out the arrow. He died within two weeks, which is what I meant by 'soon after.'


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## Guy

After going through his shoulder it went into his side.


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## SeverinR

Shockley said:


> There's a great Ming account of a Han surgery where a man was wounded by a poisoned arrow in the arm. After extracting the arrow, they peeled back the skin and scraped the bone clean in an attempt to cleanse the poison and then sewing him back up. The patient was executed within the year by the force that wounded him, so there's no telling the long-term ramifications of that kind of surgery, but it's interesting nonetheless.



Wow, scraping the bone to clean the poison, with instruments that were probably clean but not sterile. Delivering bacteria to the bone is a very tough infection to fight off, even with the best antibiotics.  The bone has poor blood supply to the surface, the bacteria grows until it sets off an immune response from the nearest blood supply, but the original site usually isn't affcted. Basically a life time of recurring infections.
Or they might have saved his life from the poison. Rsiky but might have paid off that time.


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## Benjamin Clayborne

This thread is making me light-headed.


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## Gen

Malik said:


> I should add, too, that on humans, ballistic trauma to the shoulder is a hideous thing. There are a stupid amount of muscles and tendons in there; it's as complicated as the knee joint. The trope about a shoulder wound "just winging him" is a Hollywood fabrication. If you take an arrow through your shoulder, you're going to be crippled for life. It will never heal "right."
> 
> A broadhead hunting arrow leaves a hole that you can shove a golf ball through. They do catastrophic amounts of damage. An arrow wound to the shoulder could result in a shattered scapula, fractured ribs, collapse and coma from trauma to the brachial plexus, a nicked lung filling up with blood (which you can't fix without surgery), a tension pneumothorax (also not fixable, minus a catheter and needle rig and specialized training), and if the arrowhead so much as scrapes the brachial artery, the target is done in minutes. They'll bleed out into their body cavity like pulling the drain on a bathtub; one side of their chest will turn black and distend. There is nothing you can do about it at that point except ask for their laptop password so you can start erasing their porn.
> 
> Seriously, though. You're down to minutes with a brachial artery hit. Five minutes, tops. Two, if you have a wide entry and exit hole. You'd better have a really, really good cleric or monk handy who has a chit to cash in with their gods, because the "real" way to save someone at that point would be to get in there with a hemostat clamp and pack off the artery (remember the femoral artery sequence in Black Hawk Down? Yeah. Pretty much that.)
> 
> 
> 
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Hello, I know you posted this a while ago but I was wondering if you knew what the damages would be if someone were to hit the collarbone and lodge the arrow in there. How would you go about fixing that and what would the person no longer be able to do while healing or even after it had already healed? Also, since the arrow is stuck in bone, would it be best to leave it in there until someone can safely remove it? I hope you are able to help!


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## skip.knox

I'm pretty sure the collarbone would shatter or at least snap on impact, with catastrophic to fatal results. Wait for confirmation, though.


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## Prince of Spires

As far as bones go, the collarbone is a pretty expendable one. And easy to break. Cyclists break them all the time without too many bad side effects. Wikipedia tells me it's the most commonly broken bone. 

What I think would happen is that the bone breaks at the point of impact. Which hurts a lot and inhibits you moving your arm. It will most likely take you out of action, though you can fight through the pain if you really have to (again, back to cyclists, they get up and can continue biking for a short while with a broken colarbone if they must, though they usually give up after half a km or so). Since the bone breaks, the arrow doesn't get lodged in it but sits at the fracture point. 

As for taking it out it is the same as with all arrows, knifes or other items stuck in a person. It's (almost) always safer to remove them in a safe location where healing is possible. Actually removing it may kill you where leaving it in place does not. The reason is that as long as the arrow (or blade) is safely in place it more or less closes the wound, where removing it leaves you with a big open wound and potentially severed arteries. So you're more likely to bleed out if you remove the arrow. Of course, this depends on what you do afterwards. If you move a lot, then leaving it in will make things worse, since the effect is that you start moving a sharp object in your shoulder. So if you expect you need to move a lot or fight then taking it out is probably better.


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## Insolent Lad

Prince of Spires said:


> As far as bones go, the collarbone is a pretty expendable one. And easy to break. Cyclists break them all the time without too many bad side effects. Wikipedia tells me it's the most commonly broken bone.


Yeah, I broke my collarbone somehow as a little kid and no one even knew it until years later (there's a slight bump where it mended).


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## joshua mcdermott

I have shattered my collarbone- and how serious this is may be subjective-   But mine was bad.. not just a clean break and a few impressions if you are writing about a similar instance:

1> you don't feel the pain for the first 20 minutes or so.  Adrenaline is a thing.
2> after that its a LOT of pain.
3> if its shattered it takes 3-4 months to recover even to really use your hand much.  you can maybe weakly hold a pencil but thats about it for the first few weeks.
4> mine healed but 20 years later it still obvious.. a huge jutting bump as the bone overcompensated to build up what it needed.  bodies are pretty amazing-


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