• Question: If you puncher your lungs, by like a stabbing, could you die ( if a 13 year old gets stabbed), could your body survive the stabbing.

    Asked by showercity to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 3 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      Ok, this question is a little tricky, but none the less a good question. Puncturing your lungs isn’t a good idea in the fisrt place, mostly as you have to go through your rib cage first. From the from you have the lugs on either side, and in the middle your breast plate (the sturnum, very solid and there to link and support the ribs at the front and provide more potection for your heart and wind pipe), from the back you have the spinal cord, and easier access to the heart and big vessles.

      In some cases a persons lung can deflate and leave a big gap inside the chest cavity and that person will have a huge amount of trouble breathing (this is called a pnumothorax), to help the patient regain the use of this lung and re-inflate it one option is to punture the lower rib cage at the side (to avoid other organs) and let the air in, this will help the lung to re-inflate.

      Now in the case of someone getting stabbed it is hard to say, there will be many factors and many complications. Bleeding into the lungs and drowning is the biggest complication, as well as blood lodd in general. Regardless of age the out comes are not good. the younger the more likely the mortality would increase owing to fragility.

      More often then not, if found quickly, the wound is away from major arteries and with a lot of skill from the medical staff, the person would survive. Though I do not reccomend getting stabbed!

    • Photo: Vee Mitchell

      Vee Mitchell answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      It’s perfectly possible to survive it. As Bob says it really depends on whether you hit a main artery rather than if you puncher a lung, In most cases the lung can be reinflated – and of course you do have the other lung to keep you alive in the mean time. The possibility of any stabbing is that you could bleed to death.
      It would be more tricky if you missed the lung and punctured the digestive system. If the stomach/intestine contents leak out into you body you can get get peritonitus which is basically the bacteria and toxins in your stomach poisoning you of they get in to you blood stream directly.
      Best to stay away from knifes or any one that carries them.

    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 3 Jul 2012:

      As Bob and Vee have said, there are lots of things that determine whether or not someone dies when they are stabbed. It depends what the knife hits when it goes in (and comes out) and how much damage it does to the organ it eventually cuts. Quite often people who die from stab wounds die because they lose too much blood. Blood loss is often speeded up if they are running away from the attacker. The earlier someone gets the medical help, the better their chances of survival.

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