untreated gun wounds

[arcticmike]

Was just wondering, does anybody know anything about what would happen if a gun wound was left untreated. My thoughts so far, are that the character (19-year-old male) is shot in the shoulder, and then thrown into an underground hatch/basement and left there. I'm just not sure how the wound would effect him, would her die from it eventually? or what he be able to survive for a while? if anyone knows, any help would be good!

[sabradan]

First, gunshot wounds cut flesh and blood vessels so there would be internal bleeding. Depending on the place of the wound, there may or may not be enough significant blood loss to kill someone. If they don't die, the wound area will still definately swell up like a baloon, due to well, being shot. Plus the body goes into shock, and if you know anything about shock, you can die from it very easily. Also, even in todays world of modern bullets with steel casings, if you leave a bullet in the wound for too long, you will eventually get gangrene, need to get the extremity amputated and possibly die.

Basically, you can die very easily from untreated gunshot wounds.

[MH Mijolnir]

Depends on how healthy and smart this guy is. If he's very fit strong in the head, and able to stop the bleeding, I'd say he could last a night (8-12 hours) and still walk away if he got help. But prolonged time would result in infection, and blood loss, and bad stuff.

[Snoink]

Depends where it's hit and what caliber it is. In any case, if he doesn't die immediately, it will get infected really bad. You can distrupt cells very badly that way. Also, he'll probably suffer from shock.

[arcticmike]

Thanks very much for the replies! Good stuff indeed. Any idea how long it would take before it gets all infected? I wanted the character to die anyway, but not until he'd been down there for a good 12 hours or so. I'll maybe look more into the whole shock thing, and the possiblities of infection.