Post injury survival time estimations are useful in that they can assist in the reconstructive process, and in giving court testimony. However, they cannot be accurately predicted, and several studies have found that stab wound victims are capable of quite strenuous activity post injury infliction. #
Levy and Rao (1988) found that 71% of victims survived for more than 5 minutes, and that post injury activity and survival time was not influenced by the degree of alcohol or drug intoxication.
They found that slit-like wounds produced during stabbings led to less massive blood loss, as the wound margins were in close proximity and the elasticity of the tissues helped to tamponade the blood flow.
Unless the stab wound involves the brainstem, death is not instantaneous, and victims of stabbing are capable of energetic actions, such as running and climbing stairs before they collapse.
If the heart or great vessels are targeted, the assault may be enough to ‘drop’ the victim straight away, but consciousness will not necessarily be lost immediately.
Thoresen and Rognum (1986) found that 72% of those who had acting capability following the assault were dead within 30 minutes, and those who sustained penetrating injury to the heart were unlikely to survive longer than 12 hours.
Most victims with heart and great vessel injuries were dead within 1 hour. Purdue (2000) refers to studies that had shown 68% of victims stabbed in the heart surviving (compared to 14% being shot in the heart).
Survival from stab and other incised wounds may therefore rely on prompt trauma care and resuscitation techniques.
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