489 - (FREE TO READ) Machete fight / bleed out times (GRAPHIC VIDEO)
Notes and thoughts for consideration / W.E. Fairbairn / "Timetable of death / factors in bleed time / Edged weapon defence
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Thanks to a reader for sharing this video.
Some quick notes upon viewing this video as I don’t know the circumstances behind this incident or the consequences other than amputation and so have no wish to comment about that. .
The soon-to-be-one-handed guy in the video loses his left hand on the second blocked attack of the fight and continues to fight in a dominant position standing over the downed adversary.
When the fight ends, he runs away and then returns to pick up his hand and walk off with it!
(Once again, this is a GRAPHIC video…)
Bleed times
W.E.Fairbairn’s often repeated “Timetable of death” states that severing the radial artery will result in unconsciousness in 30 seconds and death within 2 minutes.
This is thoroughly contested now and yet continues to be parroted from time to time.
This states only the depth of the cut and not the conditions that the cut occurs within:
Standing still?
Seated?
What about during the high cardiovascular demands of a machete fight?
Surely, the bleed-out would be far quicker?
Now the video is 40 seconds long and we do not see the aftermath of the injury but based on the strenuous fighting and the still conscious amputee this highlights just how unreliable the “Timetable” is.
I’ve read of surgeons stating that completely cut arteries can shrink back up into the wound and somewhat stem the blood loss in some cases.
This was in the “Blackhawk Down” movie which some readers may remember, when a soldier receives an artery injury and his fellow soldier has to reach up inside the wound to try and access the retracted artery to stem the bleed:
In the machete video, the implications are that serious injury like the complete severing of the radial artery does not just stop a fight in 30 seconds- this no doubt, highly adrenalised man does not seem to register that loss of the hand at all during the fight, he simply continues to attack the other man with hacks and slashes without slowing.
Individuals differ to a colossal extent based on many, many variables.
From their physicality and also their psychology and mental strength for example, and again, I have read interviews with surgeons that said that what killed one person did not kill another and that they believed mental outlook was a great part in this - this included being stabbed in the heart in a couple of anecdotes.
At a certain point though, sheer biology will take over and we are all mortal, I’m not saying that those who lose their lives to a violent act didn’t want to live enough to fight, just rather that many factors are at play and mental outlook may well be one of them.
Defence
There is the impulse to grab or block what is coming towards you - but it’s a blade!
This will still happen as we see here in the most dire of circumstances and the impulse to grab/block takes over and the hand is lost as a result.
He does not get inside the weapon’s arc or indeed without it - rather the actions are only of attack from both parties with little defense other than when the downed man is trying to fend a barrage of blows from his back.
The downed man may well have been afforded some small protection by wearing denim jeans and kicking upward at the standover attack while fighting back - he does seem to make blade contact with his fingers/ hand as well several times and perhaps the angles or indeed the sharpness of the blade were factors too?
People survive the most incredible injuries, this is the take-home here I think, that this is what we should always tell ourselves constantly during practice.
Training needs to reflect honestly the realities of potential injury but just because we are diminished doesn’t mean we give up.
Ever.