@thekangarooboxer There's a difference between "would like to tell.." and "really, really, really don't want to but will if absolutely backed into a corner." 😂
I know a cop who got fired for excessive violence because of a junky reenacting that scene... He attacked the cops and pepper spray didn't work on him. They didn't have taser back then and thus it was batons out. That guy kept fighting them even after both his arms were broken and he had been hit multiple times on the head (which definitely goes against regulations). He kept kicking them and once he fell on the ground, he still bit one in the ankle!
Ok, as a Surgeon: the only way a relatively thin blade can thrust with this ease at that point of the torso, is if it goes amidst the ribs and right beside the sternum. The lower part of the heart is there. So, this is a killing blow. Might take him some time to die (1 min? 2 min?), but he will surely die. In the vast majority of cases, the wound I see in that frame would be instantly incapacitating (due to the pain) and fast killing (bleeding, hypotension, cardiac arrest). BUT if you want to achieve this with a proper sabre, your best chance would be striking with the blade tilted horizontally, not upright as it is shown here, otherwise it takes much more force to pass through the ribs.
Very good points. Another thing I'd like to mention is that injuries to the heart can sometimes kill incredibly quickly. If you're hunting deer and you are able to hit them in the heart, usually you expect them to run for a minute or two, but sometimes they just drop like a rock. Granted, a bullet will cause a different kind and quantity of damage than a thin sword, but I think between the pain, previous exertion/stress, and rapid blood loss, it seems pretty reasonable for a person to drop like they did in the movie.
@@Evan-rj9xy i have seen/heard deer, on rare occasions, taking an arrow to the heart and dropping in just a few feet from where they were hit. so even arrows to the heart can, under optimal conditions, cause essentially immediate death.
A guy at my workplace had a fight in a parking lot at a pub. While he was kneeling on his opponents chest punching his face, he felt some dull hits on his back. He didn't care about them, because he felt no pain. When the fight was over he went back to the pub. Somone asked him, why is his back so wet. He touched his back, it turned out it was blood. Now he started to feel the pain and feeling sick. They called the ambulance. He was told, that he was stabbed four times in the back by knife, which penetrated his lungs. Without treatment he would have had about one hour left, before he dies. The perpetrator was the girlfriend of his opponent, with he had the fight before. Cool video again.
'To awaken in the arms of a Frenchman', sounds like a Romanc novel. LoL. Careful buddy! As a retired Correctional Officer here in British Columbia I have seen a couple of stabbings, and I can say that I was surprised at the level of wound and amount of blood loss yet the ability of the individual to stay on their feet and continue fighting and in one case walk away. One fellow was stabbed over a dozen times by another inmate with a shank and yet he beat the attacker down, even though he was unarmed. The other was when I was working for the Corpes of Commissionairs and a rather small young lady with a thin build had her throat slashed from ear to ear. She was trailing blood and left a trail like you might see from a slug. She walked to my post from where she had been slashed which was well over 100 meters and I phoned the BC ambulance for her. She survived but lost an amazing amount of blood. I have also seen a large muscular man dropped by a single punch. So yes, you never can tell.
I have low blood pressure and have fainted from injuries several times. I’m a utility company lineman and fell about 12 feet foot height from a pole and came to about 100 feet from where I fell and the people that saw said I was wheezing and staggered away and collapsed. I got my wind back and was relatively uninjured but it was concerning how far I went just with a whooshing in my ears and no vision
True, I have low blood pressure plus orthostatic hypotension and while I don't usually faint, I get groggy and incoherent after falls. Thankfully I usually just find a place to sit.
Kind of the opposite here. I have high blood pressure, and after going onto medication, my blood pressure dropped suddenly and rapidly during an extremely physical workday, midway through the day. I stayed conscious, but I slid down the wall I was next to and could barely move anything but my head for a couple minutes. White as a sheet and cool to the touch. Sudden loss of BP can put you down on the ground in seconds.
Monster K low blood pressure has also caused me to blackout taking a wiz in the middle of the night which is how I found out about my low blood pressure after my girlfriend forced me to go to the doctor from that little incident
Speaking of low blood pressure, I was rather beaten up from a tough workout and, once I got home, sat down in the shower/tub to relax under the hot water for a while. Eventually, I stood up a little too quickly and my vision started blacking out. I slumped against the shower wall to recover a bit and next thing I knew I was wrapped in a shower curtain and had a nice sized lump on the back of my head from banging into the floor. Roommate was a little freaked out after hearing that giant racket. I was so embarrassed at the event that I yelled out I just dropped something. I have a feeling he didn't believe me but decided not to dig any deeper.
@@Alex_Fahey - Here's a fun fact. If your blood pressure is low, and you take a nice, relaxing dump, then get up too quickly... the same thing can happen. When you evacuate, your diaphragm relaxes, giving you a drop in pressure. One of the first things a doctor will ask if you see them about this kind of issue is "So... Did you just take a poop before you passed out?". I gather they see it quite often.
I was a collateral duty firearms instructor throughout most of my career in federal law enforcement, and I remember that many texts and anecdotes said that it is important not to discount the psychological effect being shot has on the person. Basically, in literature, movies, tv etc, we see that being shot or in this case run through the chest with a sword equates with certain death, therefore the person will often react that way simply because it is what is expected, even though medically it may not be a life ending injury. Matt brings up the excellent point that even though the person falls down , etc. , he may not be dead or done for, he can in fact recover his wits and resume fighting. Which is why we akways stressed the importance of keeping the downed person covered and approaching very cautiously and only if you had someone covering you. Kudos that you mentioned this effect in this video. Psychology plays a huge factor in a violent encounter.
Analysis from a retired military doctor... ;-) Assuming the swords were actually "real" weapons, there are several possibilities. The tip could have hit a rib and failed to penetrate the thorax deeply enough to cause a fatal wound. In that case, he would probably have continued to fight. It could have penetrated deeply missing the heart and aorta but penetrating the lung, stomach, spleen, and/or small intestine. Such a wound might or might not have been immediately incapacitating but in 1840 would almost certainly have been ultimately fatal. The captain would have known this and perhaps then have just given up and collapsed resulting in a "psychological stop" as described by @Matthew Carberry with death minutes to days later. And, of course, given the location of the wound, it's possible the blade penetrated the heart or aorta which would most likely have resulted rapid incapacitation and death within seconds or minutes. So, yes, the scene is entirely plausible. But more importantly, the movie would be a lot less fun without it.
I don't understand how some people collapse immediately from getting stabbed in the back by a tiny knife (I guess hitting the kidney), whereas e.g. my grandfather was still fighting after being perforated multiple times by shrapnel and had one metal fragment lodged in his brain... The latter could only be removed after his death 70 years later... (they had to for the cremation). How can people be this different?
@@edi9892 I'm no expert so I could be completely off here, but I believe some people collapse instantly because they're in so much pain/stress that their body just shuts down so that they don't have to deal with it, and then other people keep fighting through grievous injuries because they have so much adrenaline pumping through their system that they barely even realize that anything's wrong.
@@edi9892 Whether a person will collapse from a stab wound depends entirely on what the script needs him to do. If it's the protagonist, he can survive any manner of stab wounds, which he will fully recover from in a day or two. If it's a nameless extra, he is going to die pretty much immediately no matter what type of stab wound it was. Real life is a different kettle of fish entirely. I remember an interview with a British veteran from the Burma campaign, who said that when charged by Japanese soldiers at close quarters, they were taught to aim for the hips. Shoot him in the chest, and you could never be sure that he would die, or die before he had the chance to bayonet you. A shot in centre mass was no guarantee at close quarters. But shoot him in the hips, and there's a much better chance that he would fall, and consequently stop his attack short.
@@edi9892 In real life it has been known to happen either way. The best educated guess by psychiatrists/psychologists is that it has a lot to do with expectations. If you believe a wound is incapacitating, it will be, whereas if you believe almost anything is survivable you're more likely to keep fighting. That's hard to prove, of course, but we do know that people with training (e.g., military and law enforcement) are more likely to keep fighting and survive than random people on the street. Of course, that's not a hard and fast rule and there are exceptions.
I had an aortic rupture from my arch back to my aortic valve. It happened on the CT scan. I was allowed to say good bye to my family as I was wheeled past. So you can survive longer than you would think! Well longer that I thought.
When I was a child, far too many years ago, my grandfather was a farmer who still did his own butchering. The relatives would gather in the fall to give him a hand taking apart a cow and turning two or three hogs inside out. The process would start with him using a .22 rimfire rifle to put a bullet through the brain stem of the animal. Watching him drop a cow where it stood with that little single shot forever burned into my mind the degree of respect that was needed when handling any firearm.
@Colin Cleveland One of the things I love about living in the Philippines is that when I bring my girlfriend a live chicken she starts thinking in terms of rice or noodles, not names for the new pet.
Damage to the aorta can bring about very rapid incapacitation, followed within a minute or so with death. I've seen where a tiny .22 caliber bullet punctured an aorta (it was at least two perforations plus hitting the top of the lung as it bounced off two ribs) and the person dropped immediately. They fell so fast they crushed their nose and did not move. Medical Examiner said the person's blood pressure went to zero instantly causing complete unconsciousness and death followed within a minute or two. Meanwhile I've seen where people with fairly horrific knife wounds beat the living crap out of their attacker (as you said, they didn't realize they'd been stabbed in most cases). The time to incapacitation can vary quite a bit, though, even with very similar wounds. With the heart completely destroyed, a person (in theory) has enough oxygenated blood for 12 - 15 seconds of vigorous physical activity. I suspect, however, if the heart is relatively intact and the blood is being shot out of a hole through the aorta, that time frame is greatly reduced to something on the order of a few seconds to no time at all. We humans are a tough lot. Stubborn too. Sometimes too stubborn to lie down and die when science (or at least common belief) says we should. ;)
Also, the aorta itself goes all the way centerline, down to the pelvis (where it is like what? seven? centimeters wide, too...or thereabouts. Its a proper bood geyser). So gut wound (shoot, or piercing) has the same possibility.
the aorta is a little over an inch wide except where it exists the heart. Its a small target, and its rarely hit. Check documentations on battlefield wounds (the Sanitätsakademie der Bundeswehr in Munich has such documentation, as well as examples in formalin). In most cases, you would die of infections (if intestines are hit) or bleed to death slowly when liver, kidneys etc are involved. Lung shots can make you suffocate from your own blood getting stuck as foamy goo. Muscle tissue hits are usually not life threatening. Bullet wounds usually kill you slowly.
marcelo oberauer this is exactly what does not happen in pierced pipes. You need to rupture them. Had a pierced water line a decade ago, the water company (not us) noticed because the were loosing many cubic meters of water per day - you noticed no drop in water pressure in the connected houses.
@@wernerviehhauser94 - In this analogy, however, you are talking about essentially an endless supply of water and a leak insufficient to lower pressure. Now figure that water leak is coming from a five liter tank. How long would it take for the tank to be empty (or at least lose more than 40% of total volume which, in the case of blood could well result in incapacitation) at the point of leaking many cubic meters per day? I have stood over a dead body wherein incapacitation was instant from the aorta being pierced (perforated twice so call it four holes of less than a quarter inch each). The victim fell immediately, landed on their face, smashing the nose flat but did not move or twitch. The autonomic survival instincts inherent in our bodies will normally move to open a blocked airway, but not in this case. Upon autopsy, a vast amount of blood was in the chest cavity and the medical examiner explained to me that so much blood came out of the punctured aorta that the subject's blood pressure went essentially to zero instantly causing total shut-down, though true death followed about a minute later. Once blood loss is over 40%, unconsciousness becomes quite likely. You can reach that quite quickly with an intact heart still pumping blood at full volume through a damaged aorta. Remember, too that as blood volume decreases, the heart will initially beat faster in an attempt to bring more blood to the brain, which ironically increases blood loss.
Several years ago, I was in a law enforcement school where the instructor was addressing the effect of firearm wounds. The two anecdotes that I remember were, one where a subject was in a fight using a knife against an officer armed with a .44 magnum handgun. The officer fired the revolver when it was in contact with the shoulder joint of the subject’s arm that was holding the knife. The shot nearly completely removed the subject’s arm, but the subject continued to fight for a few more minutes before succumbing to blood loss. The other was a kid in a gang that was shot in the hand with a .25 cal. automatic pistol. He immediately collapsed and died from shock.
I`d say it all depends on the individual, their state of mind and how well they process shock. I was a builder for 40 years and saw many injuries and a few stick in the mind. A friend of mine called graham and myself were working pouring concrete in an area that contained a lot of flint. Somehow a piece of the stone worked its way into his welly and cut him deeply. He didn’t feel it and the first he knew of it was when i noticed that blood was seeping over the top of his welly. The entire boot was full to the brim with blood. He was fine until he took the boot off then noticed how much blood was on the ground at which pint he went white. When I pulled his trouser leg up to view the cut (as with many site injuries its common for another person to look and the injured party to ask “how bad is it?”) and saw it was to the bone and a long cut. He blacked out when he viewed the cut himself but up to then had been fine. Another example was when i fell off a roof. Somehow i landed fine on my feet and had no injuries at all. I felt ok until about five minutes later, when i started to shake with shock at the thought that i was lucky to be in one piece and what could have happened.
I've had a similar experience with the roof scenario. Was cutting fire wood and my brother drooped a log in a bad spot and a metal axe went flying about an inch or 2 from my face. Took me about 5 minutes to register that I just nearly avoided having my skull cracked or split by the blade or the metal handle. Took a short 15 minute break from work after it registered, had the jitters super bad.
Well done as always, Matt. In use of deadly force in self-defense training here in the States we talk about two kinds of "stops." The first is a "psychological" stop, which is when the person hit (shot, in firearms training) simply "decides," for whatever reason, that the wound is incapacitating regardless of objective physiological effect. You see that in medicine as well, people simply "give up" and die when they probably shouldn't have. The second "stop" is, of course, physiological. We break those up into three basic types, a person can be mechanically stopped, such as if the pelvis is broken and they are no longer able to stand, walk, or run, no matter how much they want to (it's a good stop if they are armed with an impact weapon, not so much if they have a gun). The second stop is essentially "hydraulic," you punch enough holes in the right places to reduce their blood pressure to the point the brain can't function well enough to keep them a threat. Though, with enough loss, eventually they will die. Once they go down though, they can sometimes recover enough BP to "come back," so as long as they still have a weapon in their possession they remain a potential threat. The final, low-percentage, stop is neural, you "turn off the switch" by hitting them in the "computer." Unfortunately, the target is usually DRT, dead right there. People who disapprove of armed self-defense often claim that talking about "shooting to stop" is just code for "shoot to kill" because they don't understand the most reliable place to shoot a human being with comparatively low-powered handgun bullets and get an effective (mechanical or hydraulic) stop is in the upper, center torso, and any of the effective stops can be lethal if the person doesn't receive treatment soon enough after being rendered no longer a threat.
Well said, I often hear people comment on police shooting a crimminal by saying *why did they not just shoot them in the leg*. Very interesting comment you nade.
@@AndreasSweden As a retired military doctor, I'm both amused and annoyed by the "shoot them in the leg" crowd. Firstly, a shot to the leg does nothing to keep the person from using his hands and it's the weapon in his hand that you're concerned about. Secondly, a shot to the thigh has about as high a probability of lethality as a shot to the torso because the femoral artery is huge and if it's severed you will bleed out very rapidly without immediate expert intervention. Thirdly, the leg is a much smaller and harder target than the torso meaning that the likelihood of failing to stop the aggressor is lower and the likelihood of "off-target" rounds hitting something you didn't intend to hit is greater. It's actually baffling to me that there are so many people to whom this isn't obvious.
@@itsapittie Yes, it is baffling. I remember learning about the femal artery in 6th grade biology. I dont think i was the only one that learned this. But i saw a documentary about police in USA, where one officer was confronted with a mentaly ill woman whit a knife. And he opted to shoot her in the knee, so she got almost stunned with shock and dropped the knife, giving the officers time to wrestle her down. To me it seemed the best option, concidering she was getting more agitated but was not moving around, But i dont actualy jnow whats in the knee, exept for bone and ligaments. PS sorry for my spelling misstakes. Im from Sweden
@@AndreasSweden no apology necessary. Your English is orders of magnitude better than my (non-existent) Swedish. It's possible there are some scenarios in which a shot to the leg is a reasonable option but they are few and far between. You'd have to be pretty close to be sure of a hit instead of a miss and a person with a knife can close 6-7 meters and fatally stab you in an astonishingly short period of time. If you're close enough to reliably shoot a target as small as the knee, you probably should gain distance instead of shooting. The femoral and popliteal arteries run through the knee and if severed will spill a lot of blood very quickly. Maybe not lethal with immediate medical care, but if the suspect doesn't drop the knife you can't provide care. If you shoot the suspect in the knee and she doesn't drop the knife, you're back to square one except that you've now created a situation in which you may have no option but to watch her bleed to death. Even if she doesn't die, the damage of a bullet to a knee is horrific and she certainly will never walk normally again. You can argue that it's better than being dead, but it's far from an ideal outcome. Most importantly to me, however, is that you have only one chance at this. If you miss, the bullet may strike a bystander and the suspect will probably rush you with the knife in which case even with a center-mass shot you may still be killed or seriously injured. I'm not saying it was definitely the wrong call because I haven't seen the video and I obviously wasn't there, but I do believe "shoot them in the leg" is almost never the appropriate response. Even though it worked this time, the odds of success were so low that it probably shouldn't have been attempted.
@@itsapittie Thank you for your reply. It seems the officer was lucky, due to the wound did not bleed that much. The tactical situation seemed sound and i thought that this has to be the only situation were a leg shot is warrented. But the resoning you gave tells me the officer got lucky. Thanks again for taking your time to reply. You made some interesting remarks.
Years ago, there was a BBC/PBS series called "Connections." In one episode, the host showed what a sword (a broadsword, if I remember correctly) did to a side of beef, because, as he said, that's pretty much what a man is when in a battle with that type of sword. Maybe you can revisit that episode and see what you think about his demonstration.
Matt, your "falling out" with the finger cut as opposed to witnessing the effect of an open wound upon the lady was, in my opinion caused by Karma. Good video, thanks.
I don't look at it as Rathbone's character dying immediately, but rather fainting from either emotional shock or hypovolemic shock. After a long LE career, I've seen bullet wounds and knife wounds. Knives, even the relatively small pocket folders that most folks in my area of the USA carry for daily use, can do far more tissue damage than the bullet from any defensive handgun. A stab, twist, and cutting on the way out and you have vastly more severed capillaries, potentially more venous and arterial damage, muscle damage, and organ damage than by most handgun rounds. Even hollow points don't make that much bigger of a hole generally, at least until one reaches into the heavy magnums. (As I was typing this, Matt went into the possibility of Rathbone's character merely fainting and dying later -- well done, Matt!).
This reminds me of one bit of my Star Wars headcanon: that Stormtroopers who are shot don't die, but get knocked out by the force of their armor absorbing the blaster bolt. So maybe a minute after dropping, they'd just get back up again and be fine. It's not a theory that holds up to scrutiny, but it's better than "they wear bulky and restrictive armor that doesn't work against anyone they ever fight"
My headcanon is that in Star Wars there is no effective protection against blaster fire. Only energy shields are strong enough to deflect the intense heat and power of a blaster shot. Since individuals can't carry heavy shield generators around they are forced to go without. The Stormtrooper armor however is designed to protect not against blasters but against ballestic attack. Think shrapnel or conventional firearms. This is still very useful in a battle dominated by blasters because said blasters, (or artillery, grenades, or whatever) might still cause explosions, destroying the environment around you and throwing shrapnel everywhere. The rebels of course are the underdogs and can't afford to equip their soldiers with this protection. Then all of this is invalidated when Stormtroopers lose to the Ewokes armed with bows and clubs. Lol
That isnt headcanon, that was ACTUAL old EU canon. Their armor underlayer distributes the energy of a blaster bolt and knocks them unconscious. However, military grade blasters can and will penetrate plasteel armor and underlayer and be lethal to them because the energy in those shots is too large to distribute evenly and it basically burns a hole through it.
In A New Hope, during the scene after Obi-Wan's sacrifice, Luke shoots a stormtrooper, and the stormtrooper stumbles, but stays on his feet! This might be an editing mistake, or maybe the armor did its job.
I study medieval dagger and ive been attacked with knives for real a few times, and the first time i had no idea i was stabbed. I was working in lawenforcement and only once the perp was under controll did i see a knife on the ground with blood on it i asked my collegue if someone was stabbed, and he said yeah its you. When i saw the blood from my shirt, the panic set in
It would be great if Matt could review the legionary sword and shield combat featured in HBO's "Rome", perhaps the one on one between Titus Pullo and the gladiator where both fighters are equipped with gladius and scutum.
I'm really glad you finally made this, this is something that always bothered me particularly in films. In every movie or TV show involving swords there is a whirlwind of fighting then soon after 20 or 100 dead people laying totally still and quiet. In reality I imagine dozens of people groaning, and at different levels of injury stumbling about and bleeding heavily. Getting cut, thrust or shot is more unpleasant business than Hollywood likes to show.
A friend of mine used to be a saber fencing champion in his younger days. Those can *absolutely* go through a person, even being as flexible as they are. In one of the matches that took place while he was waiting for his match to start one of the competitors got the tip of his blade snapped off and on the thrust he wound up puncturing his opponent's lung. Even an unsharpened and roughly broken blade with a lot of flex in it was easily able to penetrate the protective clothing, the person's chest, and slide past the ribs into and through his lung.
Well said. I feel it is significant as to the psychological effects that at least later samurai writers believed one should be able to take at least one deliberate action after receiving a mortal wound, because that probably actually was effective in allowing them to take at least one action, possibly enough to wound or even kill their opponent, by changing their psychological expectation for what it meant to be mortally wounded.
Thanks for the video! Yes, a vasovagal reaction can be powerful, even with only a little bit of blood loss. I’ve chatted with some phlebotomists who related how otherwise tough people can just zonk out after a blood draw.
I would agree with you, and add that once he was stabbed in the chest, he resigned that he had lost and would have died regardless of the wound inflicted. (when in the service I have seen that happen soldiers who had been wounded, and under normal conditions would have survived there wounds. But they had resigned themselves to have been killed, and died.)
Whenever I see people getting stabbed or shot in movies and just immediately hitting the ground, I always assume it's from pain shock and not that they're actually instantly dead. It's kind of like combat in Dungeons & Dragons (which I have been playing for 28 years); all the Hit Points of "damage" that you are taking in combat is actually just near-misses, grazes, bruises, and the like as you struggle with your opponent to get in a solid hit. You don't actually take a substantial wound until you hit 0 hit points, at which point you drop and start bleeding out.
people also get knocked out for hours from a single punch, a la james bond. it really isnt how that works, but its fast paced, so makes for a actor who can be seen to fight when he cant, really.
When I took fencing in college I had to do research for a paper and recall reading that the purpose of flexible sword blades was to allow the blade to deflect around bone and penetrate deeper. I also recall reading that the thrust was far more deadly than the slash. As far as the damage done by bullets compared to swords, knives, and arrows. Shoot a watermelon, the hydraulic shock literally explodes the melon. Then shoot it with an arrow or stab it with a sword - no comparison. That shock when applied to critical organs such as the heart is why it can cause even large animals to collapse when hit. With arrows the hunter has to be a good tracker as typically the animal bleeds to death and will travel some distance before collapsing.
I was watching 'Xena: Warrior Princess' the other day (it's the series 25th anniversary) and was wondering what you would think of the sword fighting depicted in that show.
I was fencing epee and the opponent broke the blade on my shoulder (didn't get stabbed, the wire somehow stopped the sharp part) and then he did another thrust and I grabbed the blade before it hit my chest. He had no idea that the blade broke.
Great video Matt, as usual! I'd suggest a slight different question for such things though. Rather than asking "would this happen or not?", it is more interesting to investigate "how could that happen, if not why not, and could something similar enough happen?" I think you actually went on into some of that, but I think the different approach would suit you even more. Just a thought.
I'm old enough to remember Daniel Boone the tv series. I watch that show now as an adult and realize that someone got stabbed to death in damn near every episode. They nearly always died immediately if they were a bad guy. If they were a good guy or a sympathetic character they got to deliver some strained last words. So I guess the lesson is, be a good guy and you'll survive. Hell, Matt Dillon got shot in the shoulder so many times it must have been nothing but scar tissue.
To your point, look at one of our favorite shows, Forged in Fire. We see them cut carcasses, ballistic gel dummies and other things, as analogs for bodies, and while Doug is very accurate and a fine martial artist, not every cut with the same weapon does the same damage. If he cuts a pig 5 times with a sword, every cut hits slightly differently, cuts deeper or shallower, linger or shorter, turns slightly in his grip, all kinds of things, and he's a pro in a controlled situation. In a "real fight" thered are far too many variables to make an accurate prediction.
Then a quick flick of the wrist at the end of the thrust to cause cavitation, then press a plunger in the hilt to inject poison and ignite the explosive charge in the tip of the blade.
Well said. I do think that thrust looked good with the blood, imo. When I first saw it I almost thought it looked pretty real but I'm not an expert. The story of you feinting in the sun when cut on the finger is very interesting indeed. Gives you something to think about. Great video
Perfectly explained in my opinion. :) But I still wait for the review of the 'Potop' (the Flood) duel scene between Michal Wolodyjowski and Andrzej Kmicic ;) Best wishes! :)
This is a very intriguing topic. My first job as a teenager was wild game processing in Wyoming. I skinned various deer, antelope, elk, moose, etc. I got to examine a wide variety of bullet wounds of various calibers and equally varied effects on the animals. The hunters were always eager to tell how many shots were required per kill, the distances, and how long it took for the animal to die ( almost all were trying for clean and ethical kills ). My boss and his friends were prior Vietnam and Korean war veterans who also gave me insight into the similar effects bullets had on people. Anyway, I'm curious as to further comparison between damage via firearms vs blades, I certainly don't want hit by either.
I fainted when I got my lip pierced, it happens to me often after getting an injury. However when I went down on my Harley at 75 MPH I lost a portion of my hand, degloved my knee and took a serious hit to the head. My wife tells me I was standing and walking around when the EMT's got there. I don't remember anything after hitting the ground. 99% recovery; sometimes the human body is amazing.
Psychological effects of wounds is a curious thing. I'm not a squeamish person, but I do remember this one instance. I had had open heart surgery. I knew beforehand exactly what they would do. I didn't feel too stressed about going into surgery. The surgery went fine; I woke up and felt fine, no problems whatsoever with the anesthetics or anything. No drowsy feeling or nausea. Few days later, I was wheelchaired to the doctor's office to go over how the surgery went and I remember that the longer his explanation went on, the worse I felt to the point where I vomited all over his office floor. Something about the explanation, watching the images of it on a computer screen and realizing that this had happened to my own body mere days before just triggered this response.
I've read some 16th and 17th century accounts of prisoners being summarily executed with sword thrusts. That would suggest it was considered the quickest way to reliably kill somebody with the kind of narrow-bladed swords popular in the era. Firing squads usually aimed for the heart, so it would probably be possible to aim for the heart with a sword as well, if you knew what you were doing. It would obviously be a lot harder in a realistic combat situation, but Zorro is obviously supposed to be an exceptionally skilled swordsman within the context of the story.
Could you do a review of the black and white Cyrano de Bergerac? I always loved watching the swordfights, I don't know how well they hold up against a swordmaster's eye though.
Very good analysis in my opinion. The movie scene is one of the better wound mechanics, far ahead of the "knife in the belly" or "slash on mail" instant kills. Psychological reactions to wounds or generally in fights are very important and the cause of many one shot incapacitations; there were even some cases of people shot at who fell down and were out of the fight althought they weren't even hit. My own experiences are luckily scarce, with 14 I rammed a scissors into my hand during school manual training and fainted 10 seconds or so after, with 18 I let a big knife fell into the inner side of my bare leg (or foot?) below the ankle, a bloody affair, had to be stitched in the hospital; I did not faint and it did not even hurt at the beginning. I was lucky that nothing important was hurt. :)
Good ol' forgotten HF. The movie is a bit slow until the discovery of Princess Yuki. I think that the duel of spears was realistic. The best scene was the dance at Fire Festival. The life of man may not be too different than the insect.
In infighting we call them psychological stops, physiological stops, and (to a lesser extent than with melee weapons) "mobility kills". 4/5ths of people shot with a handgun don't die. If they quit fighting it is due to the psychological trauma that results from ralealising that they've been shot. ....as it would have been for Rathbone's charachter.
There is this lesser known movie, By The Sword from 1991 with F.Murray Abraham. I liked it quite a lot. Has a good plot,...just a bit of a corny 80s/90s vibe in some of the scenes. Worth a watch just for the gritty fencing at the end. It's still hollywood fencing though.
Interesting review. Ever read The Dark Border books? Paul Edwin Zimmer apparently knew how to use a sword, and the action and strategy in his books is fantastic.
How about epee de combat? Were they made stiff enough to penetrate a body to reach a vital organ for a mortal wound, or were they as flexible as the training epee, because they were made to be used in first blood duels, and were not intended to be lethal?
I agree with the video, just want to give my opinion on one specific point: Well, it's possible to kill someone with a modern fencing sword on accident. It happens that the blade breaks and leaves a sharp tip. That's why the protective gear needs needs to protect against this kind of puncture. Even with that deadly injuries (rarely happen, I thing around 7 in the last 100 years or so, but that's with blunt weapons and protective gear). Even without breaking I've put deep dents into the guard and masks of my fencing partners on occasion. Once "cut" the cables that connect in the guard to the sword. I somehow managed to get in between them and rip the cables. But of course, even a great hit wouldn't guarantee dead or even a serious injury. In a real fight pumped with adrenaline basically anything can happen. Assuming these swords had sharp tips, yes, they totally could kill. But it would be more difficult than with a regular sabre that's made for fighting and not dueling without the wish to do harm.
As for the chest thrust, the fainting itself as a psychological reaction could worsen a dangerous but not immediately fatal trauma into an instantly fatal one as the body collapses around the blade, angling the cut as it falls or, with the blade withdrawn, the impact of hitting the ground could burst a damaged and thus weakened core vein or artery or organ.
I saw 'Le Bossu' (1997), a French swashbuckler also known as 'On Guard', many years ago and recall several fights, and the idea there was a 'perfect' strike point between the eyes. I would imagine it would be ripe for a potential review.
I had a similar incident myself, except the frenchman was a tub and the person I was showing the wound to was my brother who just walked away with me passed out in the tub😂
Good call Matt. the final thrust APPEARS to be below the sternum. IF it opened the aorta then it’s probably “good night Saigon” in under 10 seconds. If muscle contracts and prevents a mortal wound, then quite possibly survivable. Tooooo many variables. And you never know when a “vaso-vagal” event makes you wake up in the arms of a stranger. From experience working hospital based rehabilitation, I’d put it down to dehydration. Stay well, regards from Oz 👍
A friend of my sister and their acquaintance found the friends family Bowie knife and started playing with it. They were fairly young, preteen I think, and one of them dropped the knife. On it's way to the floor in sliced the leg of the acquaintance and cut the artery that runs down the leg. My sisters friend described it like dropping a gallon jug of milk on the floor (only red). Needless to say the acquaintance survived but now has a permanent limp.
A question for a master of Sword Play. When Knights War full armor and chainmail how would a cutting blow across the chest for midsection or across the back injure a fighter it seems to me that other than the blunt strike there would be no actual injury. Am I right or am I missing something
This is an interesting topic for me as a reenactor. Never know quite what to tell the public. A sword injury could be horrific yet maybe a person could easily survive if they get lucky.
I'm not afraid of blood at all and i've cut myself a few times. But there was this one time when i showed a knife into my thumb and it got me seriously dizzy and i had to lay down on the ground otherwise i would have passed out. Maybe it has something to do with fingers and all the nerves?
Same here. Never been knocked out and have only fainted once in my life. Was at the GP and had something cut out for testing. Was standing at the nurses counter when I suddenly fainted. I went clean through a wall partition and scared the hell out of a doctor and his patient on the otherside. The nurse said she didn't know what happened to me. I was standing in front of her one moment and the next I was gone. All I remember is waking up on the floor.
Caught in the arms of a Frenchman. Scandalous. Context is everything.
Steamy... 😳
And every female viewer swoons lol.
@thekangarooboxer There's a difference between "would like to tell.." and "really, really, really don't want to but will if absolutely backed into a corner." 😂
@@robertscott2210 I see you've told 2020 to piss off and went back to the 1950s.
@@kwanarchive panties in a knot there fella?
"And the next thing I knew I was waking up in the arms of a Frenchman..."
- Matt Easton, recounting his time as an archaeologist in France.
CJ Boiss Frenchmen, they just got it
We've all been there, don't deny it. 😄
I think Lloyd protesteth too much... I reckon as soon as the camera's off he's donning his beret and swanking about lazily puffing on a gauloise.
@Garren Brooks Lloyd doesn't even drink tea. He must be a Frenchman in disguise.
@@gareththompson2708 He's even admitted to being genetically French in spite of all the flag-waving.
I need detailed review of Monty Python's Black Knight fight segment.
Most underrated request.
Yes please.
I know a cop who got fired for excessive violence because of a junky reenacting that scene... He attacked the cops and pepper spray didn't work on him. They didn't have taser back then and thus it was batons out. That guy kept fighting them even after both his arms were broken and he had been hit multiple times on the head (which definitely goes against regulations). He kept kicking them and once he fell on the ground, he still bit one in the ankle!
'Tis but a scratch!!!
meh, that was but a flesh wound... :D
Ok, as a Surgeon: the only way a relatively thin blade can thrust with this ease at that point of the torso, is if it goes amidst the ribs and right beside the sternum. The lower part of the heart is there. So, this is a killing blow. Might take him some time to die (1 min? 2 min?), but he will surely die. In the vast majority of cases, the wound I see in that frame would be instantly incapacitating (due to the pain) and fast killing (bleeding, hypotension, cardiac arrest).
BUT if you want to achieve this with a proper sabre, your best chance would be striking with the blade tilted horizontally, not upright as it is shown here, otherwise it takes much more force to pass through the ribs.
Very good points. Another thing I'd like to mention is that injuries to the heart can sometimes kill incredibly quickly. If you're hunting deer and you are able to hit them in the heart, usually you expect them to run for a minute or two, but sometimes they just drop like a rock. Granted, a bullet will cause a different kind and quantity of damage than a thin sword, but I think between the pain, previous exertion/stress, and rapid blood loss, it seems pretty reasonable for a person to drop like they did in the movie.
Good insight thanks for making this comment
@@Evan-rj9xy i have seen/heard deer, on rare occasions, taking an arrow to the heart and dropping in just a few feet from where they were hit. so even arrows to the heart can, under optimal conditions, cause essentially immediate death.
He falls to the ground, he is maybe unconscious and dies after a few minutes or faster, he dont have to be dead right away.
I've been told even a small cut in the aorta will drop someone like a rock due to bloodpressure crashing.
Matts Wife: You woke up in the arms of a Frenchman !?!
Matt: Wait you have to understand the context. It was a cut not a thrust
I like to thrust in the cut
"In actual fact, in the appropriate context you can achieve penetration."
Wife: 'I'll allow it.'
And is that the only time you've woken in the arms of a frenchman? I'd not tell Lindy!
Lindy would start a chevaunche into france if he finds out!
scholagladiatoria: Making "maybe" interesting since 2007
Matt proves that people don't die when they're killed.
We like to skip past the dying part. Unpleasant.
Captain America says: "I understood that reference"
I'm absolutely astounded to see this reference here; delightful.
"People die from bloodloss. My father is a backalley doctor and he often drains some of his patients blood, so I saw that a lot."
"Wait! What?"
Well, even people known to have got mortal wounds can go long way before actally dying!
Excellent content. Thanks. This is consistent with my fairly extensive research.
A guy at my workplace had a fight in a parking lot at a pub. While he was kneeling on his opponents chest punching his face, he felt some dull hits on his back.
He didn't care about them, because he felt no pain. When the fight was over he went back to the pub. Somone asked him, why is his back so wet. He touched his back, it turned out it was blood. Now he started to feel the pain and feeling sick. They called the ambulance. He was told, that he was stabbed four times in the back by knife, which penetrated his lungs. Without treatment he would have had about one hour left, before he dies. The perpetrator was the girlfriend of his opponent, with he had the fight before.
Cool video again.
'To awaken in the arms of a Frenchman', sounds like a Romanc novel. LoL. Careful buddy! As a retired Correctional Officer here in British Columbia I have seen a couple of stabbings, and I can say that I was surprised at the level of wound and amount of blood loss yet the ability of the individual to stay on their feet and continue fighting and in one case walk away. One fellow was stabbed over a dozen times by another inmate with a shank and yet he beat the attacker down, even though he was unarmed. The other was when I was working for the Corpes of Commissionairs and a rather small young lady with a thin build had her throat slashed from ear to ear. She was trailing blood and left a trail like you might see from a slug. She walked to my post from where she had been slashed which was well over 100 meters and I phoned the BC ambulance for her. She survived but lost an amazing amount of blood. I have also seen a large muscular man dropped by a single punch. So yes, you never can tell.
I have low blood pressure and have fainted from injuries several times. I’m a utility company lineman and fell about 12 feet foot height from a pole and came to about 100 feet from where I fell and the people that saw said I was wheezing and staggered away and collapsed. I got my wind back and was relatively uninjured but it was concerning how far I went just with a whooshing in my ears and no vision
True, I have low blood pressure plus orthostatic hypotension and while I don't usually faint, I get groggy and incoherent after falls. Thankfully I usually just find a place to sit.
Kind of the opposite here. I have high blood pressure, and after going onto medication, my blood pressure dropped suddenly and rapidly during an extremely physical workday, midway through the day. I stayed conscious, but I slid down the wall I was next to and could barely move anything but my head for a couple minutes. White as a sheet and cool to the touch.
Sudden loss of BP can put you down on the ground in seconds.
Monster K low blood pressure has also caused me to blackout taking a wiz in the middle of the night which is how I found out about my low blood pressure after my girlfriend forced me to go to the doctor from that little incident
Speaking of low blood pressure, I was rather beaten up from a tough workout and, once I got home, sat down in the shower/tub to relax under the hot water for a while. Eventually, I stood up a little too quickly and my vision started blacking out. I slumped against the shower wall to recover a bit and next thing I knew I was wrapped in a shower curtain and had a nice sized lump on the back of my head from banging into the floor.
Roommate was a little freaked out after hearing that giant racket. I was so embarrassed at the event that I yelled out I just dropped something. I have a feeling he didn't believe me but decided not to dig any deeper.
@@Alex_Fahey - Here's a fun fact. If your blood pressure is low, and you take a nice, relaxing dump, then get up too quickly... the same thing can happen.
When you evacuate, your diaphragm relaxes, giving you a drop in pressure. One of the first things a doctor will ask if you see them about this kind of issue is "So... Did you just take a poop before you passed out?". I gather they see it quite often.
I was a collateral duty firearms instructor throughout most of my career in federal law enforcement, and I remember that many texts and anecdotes said that it is important not to discount the psychological effect being shot has on the person. Basically, in literature, movies, tv etc, we see that being shot or in this case run through the chest with a sword equates with certain death, therefore the person will often react that way simply because it is what is expected, even though medically it may not be a life ending injury.
Matt brings up the excellent point that even though the person falls down , etc. , he may not be dead or done for, he can in fact recover his wits and resume fighting. Which is why we akways stressed the importance of keeping the downed person covered and approaching very cautiously and only if you had someone covering you.
Kudos that you mentioned this effect in this video. Psychology plays a huge factor in a violent encounter.
Analysis from a retired military doctor... ;-)
Assuming the swords were actually "real" weapons, there are several possibilities. The tip could have hit a rib and failed to penetrate the thorax deeply enough to cause a fatal wound. In that case, he would probably have continued to fight. It could have penetrated deeply missing the heart and aorta but penetrating the lung, stomach, spleen, and/or small intestine. Such a wound might or might not have been immediately incapacitating but in 1840 would almost certainly have been ultimately fatal. The captain would have known this and perhaps then have just given up and collapsed resulting in a "psychological stop" as described by @Matthew Carberry with death minutes to days later. And, of course, given the location of the wound, it's possible the blade penetrated the heart or aorta which would most likely have resulted rapid incapacitation and death within seconds or minutes.
So, yes, the scene is entirely plausible. But more importantly, the movie would be a lot less fun without it.
I don't understand how some people collapse immediately from getting stabbed in the back by a tiny knife (I guess hitting the kidney), whereas e.g. my grandfather was still fighting after being perforated multiple times by shrapnel and had one metal fragment lodged in his brain... The latter could only be removed after his death 70 years later... (they had to for the cremation). How can people be this different?
@@edi9892 I'm no expert so I could be completely off here, but I believe some people collapse instantly because they're in so much pain/stress that their body just shuts down so that they don't have to deal with it, and then other people keep fighting through grievous injuries because they have so much adrenaline pumping through their system that they barely even realize that anything's wrong.
@@edi9892 Whether a person will collapse from a stab wound depends entirely on what the script needs him to do. If it's the protagonist, he can survive any manner of stab wounds, which he will fully recover from in a day or two. If it's a nameless extra, he is going to die pretty much immediately no matter what type of stab wound it was.
Real life is a different kettle of fish entirely. I remember an interview with a British veteran from the Burma campaign, who said that when charged by Japanese soldiers at close quarters, they were taught to aim for the hips. Shoot him in the chest, and you could never be sure that he would die, or die before he had the chance to bayonet you. A shot in centre mass was no guarantee at close quarters. But shoot him in the hips, and there's a much better chance that he would fall, and consequently stop his attack short.
@@edi9892 In real life it has been known to happen either way. The best educated guess by psychiatrists/psychologists is that it has a lot to do with expectations. If you believe a wound is incapacitating, it will be, whereas if you believe almost anything is survivable you're more likely to keep fighting. That's hard to prove, of course, but we do know that people with training (e.g., military and law enforcement) are more likely to keep fighting and survive than random people on the street. Of course, that's not a hard and fast rule and there are exceptions.
I had an aortic rupture from my arch back to my aortic valve. It happened on the CT scan. I was allowed to say good bye to my family as I was wheeled past. So you can survive longer than you would think! Well longer that I thought.
When I was a child, far too many years ago, my grandfather was a farmer who still did his own butchering. The relatives would gather in the fall to give him a hand taking apart a cow and turning two or three hogs inside out. The process would start with him using a .22 rimfire rifle to put a bullet through the brain stem of the animal. Watching him drop a cow where it stood with that little single shot forever burned into my mind the degree of respect that was needed when handling any firearm.
@Colin Cleveland One of the things I love about living in the Philippines is that when I bring my girlfriend a live chicken she starts thinking in terms of rice or noodles, not names for the new pet.
@Colin Cleveland we do, we're called hunters
He was bested in the duel so his body accepted it was defeated and said "Jolly fine strike fellow!" before falling to the ground.
Damage to the aorta can bring about very rapid incapacitation, followed within a minute or so with death. I've seen where a tiny .22 caliber bullet punctured an aorta (it was at least two perforations plus hitting the top of the lung as it bounced off two ribs) and the person dropped immediately. They fell so fast they crushed their nose and did not move. Medical Examiner said the person's blood pressure went to zero instantly causing complete unconsciousness and death followed within a minute or two. Meanwhile I've seen where people with fairly horrific knife wounds beat the living crap out of their attacker (as you said, they didn't realize they'd been stabbed in most cases). The time to incapacitation can vary quite a bit, though, even with very similar wounds. With the heart completely destroyed, a person (in theory) has enough oxygenated blood for 12 - 15 seconds of vigorous physical activity. I suspect, however, if the heart is relatively intact and the blood is being shot out of a hole through the aorta, that time frame is greatly reduced to something on the order of a few seconds to no time at all.
We humans are a tough lot. Stubborn too. Sometimes too stubborn to lie down and die when science (or at least common belief) says we should. ;)
Also, the aorta itself goes all the way centerline, down to the pelvis (where it is like what? seven? centimeters wide, too...or thereabouts. Its a proper bood geyser). So gut wound (shoot, or piercing) has the same possibility.
the aorta is a little over an inch wide except where it exists the heart. Its a small target, and its rarely hit. Check documentations on battlefield wounds (the Sanitätsakademie der Bundeswehr in Munich has such documentation, as well as examples in formalin). In most cases, you would die of infections (if intestines are hit) or bleed to death slowly when liver, kidneys etc are involved. Lung shots can make you suffocate from your own blood getting stuck as foamy goo. Muscle tissue hits are usually not life threatening. Bullet wounds usually kill you slowly.
Yep, the thrust wound in the movie can be similar to a aorta piercing and heart. Is like piercing a steam pipe, it will drop all the pressure.
marcelo oberauer this is exactly what does not happen in pierced pipes. You need to rupture them. Had a pierced water line a decade ago, the water company (not us) noticed because the were loosing many cubic meters of water per day - you noticed no drop in water pressure in the connected houses.
@@wernerviehhauser94 - In this analogy, however, you are talking about essentially an endless supply of water and a leak insufficient to lower pressure. Now figure that water leak is coming from a five liter tank. How long would it take for the tank to be empty (or at least lose more than 40% of total volume which, in the case of blood could well result in incapacitation) at the point of leaking many cubic meters per day?
I have stood over a dead body wherein incapacitation was instant from the aorta being pierced (perforated twice so call it four holes of less than a quarter inch each). The victim fell immediately, landed on their face, smashing the nose flat but did not move or twitch. The autonomic survival instincts inherent in our bodies will normally move to open a blocked airway, but not in this case. Upon autopsy, a vast amount of blood was in the chest cavity and the medical examiner explained to me that so much blood came out of the punctured aorta that the subject's blood pressure went essentially to zero instantly causing total shut-down, though true death followed about a minute later.
Once blood loss is over 40%, unconsciousness becomes quite likely. You can reach that quite quickly with an intact heart still pumping blood at full volume through a damaged aorta. Remember, too that as blood volume decreases, the heart will initially beat faster in an attempt to bring more blood to the brain, which ironically increases blood loss.
Several years ago, I was in a law enforcement school where the instructor was addressing the effect of firearm wounds. The two anecdotes that I remember were, one where a subject was in a fight using a knife against an officer armed with a .44 magnum handgun. The officer fired the revolver when it was in contact with the shoulder joint of the subject’s arm that was holding the knife. The shot nearly completely removed the subject’s arm, but the subject continued to fight for a few more minutes before succumbing to blood loss.
The other was a kid in a gang that was shot in the hand with a .25 cal. automatic pistol. He immediately collapsed and died from shock.
I`d say it all depends on the individual, their state of mind and how well they process shock. I was a builder for 40 years and saw many injuries and a few stick in the mind. A friend of mine called graham and myself were working pouring concrete in an area that contained a lot of flint. Somehow a piece of the stone worked its way into his welly and cut him deeply. He didn’t feel it and the first he knew of it was when i noticed that blood was seeping over the top of his welly. The entire boot was full to the brim with blood. He was fine until he took the boot off then noticed how much blood was on the ground at which pint he went white. When I pulled his trouser leg up to view the cut (as with many site injuries its common for another person to look and the injured party to ask “how bad is it?”) and saw it was to the bone and a long cut. He blacked out when he viewed the cut himself but up to then had been fine. Another example was when i fell off a roof. Somehow i landed fine on my feet and had no injuries at all. I felt ok until about five minutes later, when i started to shake with shock at the thought that i was lucky to be in one piece and what could have happened.
I've had a similar experience with the roof scenario. Was cutting fire wood and my brother drooped a log in a bad spot and a metal axe went flying about an inch or 2 from my face. Took me about 5 minutes to register that I just nearly avoided having my skull cracked or split by the blade or the metal handle. Took a short 15 minute break from work after it registered, had the jitters super bad.
Was that "at that pint" a typo or a pun. I like the pun better
@@mpetersen6 well spotted. it was a typo but i liked it better than point (as it was true) so left it.
I'll bet he went white at the sight of a pint. (of blood, his own.)
Well done as always, Matt. In use of deadly force in self-defense training here in the States we talk about two kinds of "stops." The first is a "psychological" stop, which is when the person hit (shot, in firearms training) simply "decides," for whatever reason, that the wound is incapacitating regardless of objective physiological effect. You see that in medicine as well, people simply "give up" and die when they probably shouldn't have.
The second "stop" is, of course, physiological. We break those up into three basic types, a person can be mechanically stopped, such as if the pelvis is broken and they are no longer able to stand, walk, or run, no matter how much they want to (it's a good stop if they are armed with an impact weapon, not so much if they have a gun). The second stop is essentially "hydraulic," you punch enough holes in the right places to reduce their blood pressure to the point the brain can't function well enough to keep them a threat. Though, with enough loss, eventually they will die. Once they go down though, they can sometimes recover enough BP to "come back," so as long as they still have a weapon in their possession they remain a potential threat. The final, low-percentage, stop is neural, you "turn off the switch" by hitting them in the "computer." Unfortunately, the target is usually DRT, dead right there.
People who disapprove of armed self-defense often claim that talking about "shooting to stop" is just code for "shoot to kill" because they don't understand the most reliable place to shoot a human being with comparatively low-powered handgun bullets and get an effective (mechanical or hydraulic) stop is in the upper, center torso, and any of the effective stops can be lethal if the person doesn't receive treatment soon enough after being rendered no longer a threat.
Well said, I often hear people comment on police shooting a crimminal by saying *why did they not just shoot them in the leg*. Very interesting comment you nade.
@@AndreasSweden As a retired military doctor, I'm both amused and annoyed by the "shoot them in the leg" crowd. Firstly, a shot to the leg does nothing to keep the person from using his hands and it's the weapon in his hand that you're concerned about. Secondly, a shot to the thigh has about as high a probability of lethality as a shot to the torso because the femoral artery is huge and if it's severed you will bleed out very rapidly without immediate expert intervention. Thirdly, the leg is a much smaller and harder target than the torso meaning that the likelihood of failing to stop the aggressor is lower and the likelihood of "off-target" rounds hitting something you didn't intend to hit is greater. It's actually baffling to me that there are so many people to whom this isn't obvious.
@@itsapittie Yes, it is baffling. I remember learning about the femal artery in 6th grade biology. I dont think i was the only one that learned this. But i saw a documentary about police in USA, where one officer was confronted with a mentaly ill woman whit a knife. And he opted to shoot her in the knee, so she got almost stunned with shock and dropped the knife, giving the officers time to wrestle her down.
To me it seemed the best option, concidering she was getting more agitated but was not moving around, But i dont actualy jnow whats in the knee, exept for bone and ligaments. PS sorry for my spelling misstakes. Im from Sweden
@@AndreasSweden no apology necessary. Your English is orders of magnitude better than my (non-existent) Swedish.
It's possible there are some scenarios in which a shot to the leg is a reasonable option but they are few and far between. You'd have to be pretty close to be sure of a hit instead of a miss and a person with a knife can close 6-7 meters and fatally stab you in an astonishingly short period of time. If you're close enough to reliably shoot a target as small as the knee, you probably should gain distance instead of shooting.
The femoral and popliteal arteries run through the knee and if severed will spill a lot of blood very quickly. Maybe not lethal with immediate medical care, but if the suspect doesn't drop the knife you can't provide care. If you shoot the suspect in the knee and she doesn't drop the knife, you're back to square one except that you've now created a situation in which you may have no option but to watch her bleed to death. Even if she doesn't die, the damage of a bullet to a knee is horrific and she certainly will never walk normally again. You can argue that it's better than being dead, but it's far from an ideal outcome. Most importantly to me, however, is that you have only one chance at this. If you miss, the bullet may strike a bystander and the suspect will probably rush you with the knife in which case even with a center-mass shot you may still be killed or seriously injured.
I'm not saying it was definitely the wrong call because I haven't seen the video and I obviously wasn't there, but I do believe "shoot them in the leg" is almost never the appropriate response. Even though it worked this time, the odds of success were so low that it probably shouldn't have been attempted.
@@itsapittie Thank you for your reply. It seems the officer was lucky, due to the wound did not bleed that much. The tactical situation seemed sound and i thought that this has to be the only situation were a leg shot is warrented. But the resoning you gave tells me the officer got lucky. Thanks again for taking your time to reply. You made some interesting remarks.
Alatriste! Alatriste! Please oh please Matt, do Alatriste!
Sí!
Yes! I'm interested in the duel between Alatriste's disciple and the Italian guy
Agreed!
Wish granted, skeleton
@@favkisnexerade lol yay!
Years ago, there was a BBC/PBS series called "Connections." In one episode, the host showed what a sword (a broadsword, if I remember correctly) did to a side of beef, because, as he said, that's pretty much what a man is when in a battle with that type of sword. Maybe you can revisit that episode and see what you think about his demonstration.
I'd like to see the fight bewteen Jack und Will in the first Pirates of the Carribean movie
"Who makes all of them?"
"I do, and I practice with them three hours a day!"
"You need to find yourself a girl, mate."
Best line in the entire series
Matt, your "falling out" with the finger cut as opposed to witnessing the effect of an open wound upon the lady was, in my opinion caused by Karma. Good video, thanks.
My theory is she knew he was trying to scare her, she got mad, and knocked him the f### out!!😁
I don't look at it as Rathbone's character dying immediately, but rather fainting from either emotional shock or hypovolemic shock. After a long LE career, I've seen bullet wounds and knife wounds. Knives, even the relatively small pocket folders that most folks in my area of the USA carry for daily use, can do far more tissue damage than the bullet from any defensive handgun. A stab, twist, and cutting on the way out and you have vastly more severed capillaries, potentially more venous and arterial damage, muscle damage, and organ damage than by most handgun rounds. Even hollow points don't make that much bigger of a hole generally, at least until one reaches into the heavy magnums. (As I was typing this, Matt went into the possibility of Rathbone's character merely fainting and dying later -- well done, Matt!).
This reminds me of one bit of my Star Wars headcanon: that Stormtroopers who are shot don't die, but get knocked out by the force of their armor absorbing the blaster bolt. So maybe a minute after dropping, they'd just get back up again and be fine. It's not a theory that holds up to scrutiny, but it's better than "they wear bulky and restrictive armor that doesn't work against anyone they ever fight"
My headcanon is that in Star Wars there is no effective protection against blaster fire. Only energy shields are strong enough to deflect the intense heat and power of a blaster shot. Since individuals can't carry heavy shield generators around they are forced to go without. The Stormtrooper armor however is designed to protect not against blasters but against ballestic attack. Think shrapnel or conventional firearms. This is still very useful in a battle dominated by blasters because said blasters, (or artillery, grenades, or whatever) might still cause explosions, destroying the environment around you and throwing shrapnel everywhere. The rebels of course are the underdogs and can't afford to equip their soldiers with this protection.
Then all of this is invalidated when Stormtroopers lose to the Ewokes armed with bows and clubs. Lol
That isnt headcanon, that was ACTUAL old EU canon. Their armor underlayer distributes the energy of a blaster bolt and knocks them unconscious. However, military grade blasters can and will penetrate plasteel armor and underlayer and be lethal to them because the energy in those shots is too large to distribute evenly and it basically burns a hole through it.
In A New Hope, during the scene after Obi-Wan's sacrifice, Luke shoots a stormtrooper, and the stormtrooper stumbles, but stays on his feet! This might be an editing mistake, or maybe the armor did its job.
@@hans7686 in KotOR games there were portable energy shields, despite the games being set 4000 years before tge original trilogy.
@@arx3516 technology in the SW galaxy has it's ups and downs constantly due to the cycle of destructive intergalactic wars.
I study medieval dagger and ive been attacked with knives for real a few times, and the first time i had no idea i was stabbed. I was working in lawenforcement and only once the perp was under controll did i see a knife on the ground with blood on it i asked my collegue if someone was stabbed, and he said yeah its you. When i saw the blood from my shirt, the panic set in
Adrenaline's one hell of a drug.
It would be great if Matt could review the legionary sword and shield combat featured in HBO's "Rome", perhaps the one on one between Titus Pullo and the gladiator where both fighters are equipped with gladius and scutum.
I would love a review of the final fight between Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Rathbone has an even more impressive death in that one.
@@eldorados_lost_searcher oh yeah!
I would like a review of Errol Flynn's mullet in "They Died With Their Boots On"
I like the way you analyze the weapons for the overall outcome of the wounds upon the body.
I'm really glad you finally made this, this is something that always bothered me particularly in films. In every movie or TV show involving swords there is a whirlwind of fighting then soon after 20 or 100 dead people laying totally still and quiet. In reality I imagine dozens of people groaning, and at different levels of injury stumbling about and bleeding heavily. Getting cut, thrust or shot is more unpleasant business than Hollywood likes to show.
In Game of Thrones, you do see the wounded getting picked off after the battle in some scenes.
A friend of mine used to be a saber fencing champion in his younger days. Those can *absolutely* go through a person, even being as flexible as they are. In one of the matches that took place while he was waiting for his match to start one of the competitors got the tip of his blade snapped off and on the thrust he wound up puncturing his opponent's lung. Even an unsharpened and roughly broken blade with a lot of flex in it was easily able to penetrate the protective clothing, the person's chest, and slide past the ribs into and through his lung.
All hail the king of context!
Well said. I feel it is significant as to the psychological effects that at least later samurai writers believed one should be able to take at least one deliberate action after receiving a mortal wound, because that probably actually was effective in allowing them to take at least one action, possibly enough to wound or even kill their opponent, by changing their psychological expectation for what it meant to be mortally wounded.
The count of Monte Cristo had some good fights that look a little different than most movies. I would love to see a review of that.
+
Which version? The Richard Chamberlain & Tony Curtis table-jumping one?
Great as always, Matt. How about the duel from The Deluge? I'm sure that would be popular.
Thanks for the video!
Yes, a vasovagal reaction can be powerful, even with only a little bit of blood loss. I’ve chatted with some phlebotomists who related how otherwise tough people can just zonk out after a blood draw.
Oh, Matt. Many of us have woken up in the arms of a Frenchman. I'm sure it wasn't the last time.
I would agree with you, and add that once he was stabbed in the chest, he resigned that he had lost and would have died regardless of the wound inflicted. (when in the service I have seen that happen soldiers who had been wounded, and under normal conditions would have survived there wounds. But they had resigned themselves to have been killed, and died.)
Must do the Princess Bride duel between the Man in Blace & Inego!
That thrust was in the upper abdomen, through the aorta.
yup right in the heart game over done
Whenever I see people getting stabbed or shot in movies and just immediately hitting the ground, I always assume it's from pain shock and not that they're actually instantly dead.
It's kind of like combat in Dungeons & Dragons (which I have been playing for 28 years); all the Hit Points of "damage" that you are taking in combat is actually just near-misses, grazes, bruises, and the like as you struggle with your opponent to get in a solid hit. You don't actually take a substantial wound until you hit 0 hit points, at which point you drop and start bleeding out.
people also get knocked out for hours from a single punch, a la james bond. it really isnt how that works, but its fast paced, so makes for a actor who can be seen to fight when he cant, really.
The fainting episode Mat describes is a classic description of shock.
What are you going on about? The Blade obviously hit in the Rath Bone. Jeez...
When I took fencing in college I had to do research for a paper and recall reading that the purpose of flexible sword blades was to allow the blade to deflect around bone and penetrate deeper. I also recall reading that the thrust was far more deadly than the slash.
As far as the damage done by bullets compared to swords, knives, and arrows. Shoot a watermelon, the hydraulic shock literally explodes the melon. Then shoot it with an arrow or stab it with a sword - no comparison. That shock when applied to critical organs such as the heart is why it can cause even large animals to collapse when hit. With arrows the hunter has to be a good tracker as typically the animal bleeds to death and will travel some distance before collapsing.
I was watching 'Xena: Warrior Princess' the other day (it's the series 25th anniversary) and was wondering what you would think of the sword fighting depicted in that show.
He, with a sword, being all wound up, wound up wounding the man, who's now wound up on the ground wounded
English is a fun language.
i'm getting 'dearest creature in creation' vibes :))
Now say that five times faster
@@Vlad_Tepes_III
That that that that that.
"In Olympic fencing people don't die" Vladimir Smirnov would disagree... :/
I remember our coach specifically told us to check the blade before sparring for the sake of that poor fellow. S-curve is a big no no.
I was fencing epee and the opponent broke the blade on my shoulder (didn't get stabbed, the wire somehow stopped the sharp part) and then he did another thrust and I grabbed the blade before it hit my chest. He had no idea that the blade broke.
Smirnov took a thrust into the eye, but there have been a few other deaths as well, including a teenager who had a blade go in under his armpit.
Fencers aren't supposed to die during a match. Accidents, however, happen along with other variables.
@@SirFrederick Yikes!
Great video Matt, as usual!
I'd suggest a slight different question for such things though. Rather than asking "would this happen or not?", it is more interesting to investigate "how could that happen, if not why not, and could something similar enough happen?" I think you actually went on into some of that, but I think the different approach would suit you even more. Just a thought.
Hi Matt. Great channel with great content. 👍. On duels scenes review: check a saber duel in movie 'Potop'. I'm really curious your opinion.
I'm old enough to remember Daniel Boone the tv series. I watch that show now as an adult and realize that someone got stabbed to death in damn near every episode. They nearly always died immediately if they were a bad guy. If they were a good guy or a sympathetic character they got to deliver some strained last words. So I guess the lesson is, be a good guy and you'll survive. Hell, Matt Dillon got shot in the shoulder so many times it must have been nothing but scar tissue.
Always good stuff Matt. Going to see if you have that shirt in merch! I want one!
To your point, look at one of our favorite shows, Forged in Fire. We see them cut carcasses, ballistic gel dummies and other things, as analogs for bodies, and while Doug is very accurate and a fine martial artist, not every cut with the same weapon does the same damage. If he cuts a pig 5 times with a sword, every cut hits slightly differently, cuts deeper or shallower, linger or shorter, turns slightly in his grip, all kinds of things, and he's a pro in a controlled situation. In a "real fight" thered are far too many variables to make an accurate prediction.
The parking garage fight from Highlander. Please.
Thank you Matt
Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC was twice the British Army Fencing Champion and taught Tyrone Power how to fence
Matt, should make a video about dual wielding spears. (as in holding 2 Spears in 1 hand each)
You should thrust at 3,000 fps and rely on hydrostatic shock.
Then a quick flick of the wrist at the end of the thrust to cause cavitation, then press a plunger in the hilt to inject poison and ignite the explosive charge in the tip of the blade.
@@pattheplanter that would certainly do the trick
Well said. I do think that thrust looked good with the blood, imo. When I first saw it I almost thought it looked pretty real but I'm not an expert. The story of you feinting in the sun when cut on the finger is very interesting indeed. Gives you something to think about. Great video
Perfectly explained in my opinion. :) But I still wait for the review of the 'Potop' (the Flood) duel scene between Michal Wolodyjowski and Andrzej Kmicic ;) Best wishes! :)
This is a very intriguing topic. My first job as a teenager was wild game processing in Wyoming. I skinned various deer, antelope, elk, moose, etc. I got to examine a wide variety of bullet wounds of various calibers and equally varied effects on the animals. The hunters were always eager to tell how many shots were required per kill, the distances, and how long it took for the animal to die ( almost all were trying for clean and ethical kills ). My boss and his friends were prior Vietnam and Korean war veterans who also gave me insight into the similar effects bullets had on people. Anyway, I'm curious as to further comparison between damage via firearms vs blades, I certainly don't want hit by either.
I understand that spears used for boar hunting had a cross bar to stop an impaled boar from charging up the spear.
In the Movie By The Sword, one sword used in the final fight is a modern fencing blade with the tip broken off.
Waking up in the arms of a frenchman is a memory I, too, cherish dearly ;D
I fainted when I got my lip pierced, it happens to me often after getting an injury.
However when I went down on my Harley at 75 MPH I lost a portion of my hand, degloved my knee and took a serious hit to the head.
My wife tells me I was standing and walking around when the EMT's got there. I don't remember anything after hitting the ground.
99% recovery; sometimes the human body is amazing.
Psychological effects of wounds is a curious thing. I'm not a squeamish person, but I do remember this one instance. I had had open heart surgery. I knew beforehand exactly what they would do. I didn't feel too stressed about going into surgery. The surgery went fine; I woke up and felt fine, no problems whatsoever with the anesthetics or anything. No drowsy feeling or nausea. Few days later, I was wheelchaired to the doctor's office to go over how the surgery went and I remember that the longer his explanation went on, the worse I felt to the point where I vomited all over his office floor.
Something about the explanation, watching the images of it on a computer screen and realizing that this had happened to my own body mere days before just triggered this response.
The explanation of things like that makes me feel sick every time, I can rationalise it but I still feel the physical effects.
I've done the same thing with a finger cut, without the faint. The sight of the muscle, bone and tendons is unreal for a second then blood everywhere.
Hello, could you do a video about wall mounting ? General tips / perhaps kid-friendly tips
I've read some 16th and 17th century accounts of prisoners being summarily executed with sword thrusts. That would suggest it was considered the quickest way to reliably kill somebody with the kind of narrow-bladed swords popular in the era. Firing squads usually aimed for the heart, so it would probably be possible to aim for the heart with a sword as well, if you knew what you were doing. It would obviously be a lot harder in a realistic combat situation, but Zorro is obviously supposed to be an exceptionally skilled swordsman within the context of the story.
Could you do a review of the black and white Cyrano de Bergerac? I always loved watching the swordfights, I don't know how well they hold up against a swordmaster's eye though.
Would be neat to see commentary on the fights in the Highlander TV series
Very good analysis in my opinion. The movie scene is one of the better wound mechanics, far ahead of the "knife in the belly" or "slash on mail" instant kills. Psychological reactions to wounds or generally in fights are very important and the cause of many one shot incapacitations; there were even some cases of people shot at who fell down and were out of the fight althought they weren't even hit. My own experiences are luckily scarce, with 14 I rammed a scissors into my hand during school manual training and fainted 10 seconds or so after, with 18 I let a big knife fell into the inner side of my bare leg (or foot?) below the ankle, a bloody affair, had to be stitched in the hospital; I did not faint and it did not even hurt at the beginning. I was lucky that nothing important was hurt. :)
Hi Matt! Please review the duel from Potop (The Deluge)! Best movie sabre duel I've ever seen!
Review of the spear fight in "The Hidden Fortress" please! Inspiration for Star Wars.
Good ol' forgotten HF. The movie is a bit slow until the discovery of Princess Yuki. I think that the duel of spears was realistic. The best scene was the dance at Fire Festival. The life of man may not be too different than the insect.
In infighting we call them psychological stops, physiological stops, and (to a lesser extent than with melee weapons) "mobility kills".
4/5ths of people shot with a handgun don't die. If they quit fighting it is due to the psychological trauma that results from ralealising that they've been shot. ....as it would have been for Rathbone's charachter.
There is this lesser known movie, By The Sword from 1991 with F.Murray Abraham. I liked it quite a lot. Has a good plot,...just a bit of a corny 80s/90s vibe in some of the scenes. Worth a watch just for the gritty fencing at the end. It's still hollywood fencing though.
Interesting review.
Ever read The Dark Border books? Paul Edwin Zimmer apparently knew how to use a sword, and the action and strategy in his books is fantastic.
How about epee de combat? Were they made stiff enough to penetrate a body to reach a vital organ for a mortal wound, or were they as flexible as the training epee, because they were made to be used in first blood duels, and were not intended to be lethal?
The Duel from 1974 film The Deluge (original title: Potop), same scene that Skallagrim analyzed.
I love the idea of young Matt trying to freak a young woman out with his cut finger and fainting in the process.
I agree with the video, just want to give my opinion on one specific point:
Well, it's possible to kill someone with a modern fencing sword on accident. It happens that the blade breaks and leaves a sharp tip. That's why the protective gear needs needs to protect against this kind of puncture. Even with that deadly injuries (rarely happen, I thing around 7 in the last 100 years or so, but that's with blunt weapons and protective gear). Even without breaking I've put deep dents into the guard and masks of my fencing partners on occasion. Once "cut" the cables that connect in the guard to the sword. I somehow managed to get in between them and rip the cables.
But of course, even a great hit wouldn't guarantee dead or even a serious injury. In a real fight pumped with adrenaline basically anything can happen.
Assuming these swords had sharp tips, yes, they totally could kill. But it would be more difficult than with a regular sabre that's made for fighting and not dueling without the wish to do harm.
thanks very much, video was again very insightfull
Have you reviewed the legendary Rashomon fight? Would be fun to see
See this up against the scene of Paul knifing the french soldier in "All quiet on the west front"
As for the chest thrust, the fainting itself as a psychological reaction could worsen a dangerous but not immediately fatal trauma into an instantly fatal one as the body collapses around the blade, angling the cut as it falls or, with the blade withdrawn, the impact of hitting the ground could burst a damaged and thus weakened core vein or artery or organ.
I saw 'Le Bossu' (1997), a French swashbuckler also known as 'On Guard', many years ago and recall several fights, and the idea there was a 'perfect' strike point between the eyes. I would imagine it would be ripe for a potential review.
I had a similar incident myself, except the frenchman was a tub and the person I was showing the wound to was my brother who just walked away with me passed out in the tub😂
The "sharpe" episode when he dueled a guy with a rapier with his cavalry sabre is a good example of the damage potential.
Good call Matt. the final thrust APPEARS to be below the sternum. IF it opened the aorta then it’s probably “good night Saigon” in under 10 seconds. If muscle contracts and prevents a mortal wound, then quite possibly survivable. Tooooo many variables.
And you never know when a “vaso-vagal” event makes you wake up in the arms of a stranger. From experience working hospital based rehabilitation, I’d put it down to dehydration.
Stay well, regards from Oz 👍
We need a fight review of The Last Samurai where Tom Cruise tries to fence with a booken and gets thrashed by the samurai
I will again suggest you review the climactic fight from Robin and Marian.
A friend of my sister and their acquaintance found the friends family Bowie knife and started playing with it. They were fairly young, preteen I think, and one of them dropped the knife. On it's way to the floor in sliced the leg of the acquaintance and cut the artery that runs down the leg. My sisters friend described it like dropping a gallon jug of milk on the floor (only red). Needless to say the acquaintance survived but now has a permanent limp.
A question for a master of Sword Play. When Knights War full armor and chainmail how would a cutting blow across the chest for midsection or across the back injure a fighter it seems to me that other than the blunt strike there would be no actual injury. Am I right or am I missing something
You are completely right. Cutting in armoured combat didnt happen
This is an interesting topic for me as a reenactor. Never know quite what to tell the public. A sword injury could be horrific yet maybe a person could easily survive if they get lucky.
heart is one thing, there's also main aortal arc and aorta itself in that area - would probably give a similar effect even if not completly severed...
the two rapier fights in Alatriste
This^
I'm not afraid of blood at all and i've cut myself a few times. But there was this one time when i showed a knife into my thumb and it got me seriously dizzy and i had to lay down on the ground otherwise i would have passed out. Maybe it has something to do with fingers and all the nerves?
You oughta review The Duelists
Nowadays: "Would that strike kill an opponent? We don't know" 180 A.D. Commodus: "Lets find out, bring in the gladiators"
Same here. Never been knocked out and have only fainted once in my life. Was at the GP and had something cut out for testing. Was standing at the nurses counter when I suddenly fainted. I went clean through a wall partition and scared the hell out of a doctor and his patient on the otherside. The nurse said she didn't know what happened to me. I was standing in front of her one moment and the next I was gone. All I remember is waking up on the floor.