[eli5] In movies and TV shows, I often see people tell mortally wounded companions not to go to fall sleep. I assume it’s because it will result in certain demise. Is there any medical basis for this?

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[eli5] In movies and TV shows, I often see people tell mortally wounded companions not to go to fall sleep. I assume it’s because it will result in certain demise. Is there any medical basis for this?

In: Biology

3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There is definitely truth to it for head trauma. If someone has a concussion, going to sleep can make it harder to diagnose problems like loss of movement or awareness and you might miss a serious complication for eight hours instead of spotting it quickly. This same principle could apply to some other injuries like hyptohermia, lack of oxygen, or blood loss for the same reason.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It is just a diagnosis issue. If you are conscious you can explain your symptoms OR if you do lose consciousness when you were attempting not to that also means something from a diagnostic perspective.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I agree with the other redditors who wrote about the difficulties of diagnosis if somebody is asleep, but for the most part if somebody is heavily injured there is a chance of them blacking out which could bring up several problems (mostly related to loss of muscle tension):

* when unconscious the airways might get blocked up by the tounge or vomit (from the outside you don’t nessesarily notice that because they might “not chocke visibly”) thats the reason you should put a unconscious person in the stable lateral position to prevent that
* your body contracts the muscles and bloodvessels around an injury so if blacked out the body can’t keep that up and it’s way more difficult to stop a bleeding