Eli5: In movies people instruct bleeding out characters to stay with them and to keep their eyes open. Does falling asleep/ blacking out actually accelerate the process of dying or is that just a movie cliche?
In: Biology
As we know, oxygen binds to hemoglobin in our blood stream, allowing oxygen to reach tissues. This process is known as perfusion, so when the tissues are not receiving blood or less blood it can cause tissues to lose function or die. Whe. There’s a massive blood loss and not nearly enough blood is being circulated, it leads into what’s known as hypovolemic shock (shock is the disruption of perfusion in some form or another). Shock leads into organ failure and then death unless the primary cause of shock can be assessed and repaired.
During the course of hypovolemic shock, the body is doing its best to compensate. The heart and breath rate are much faster to keep drawing in oxygen and circulating it to vital organs to keep the body alive.
So my guess for the logic is that if they can stay awake and breathing, they can maintain some perfusion. However, when you’ve got one hemoglobin cycling oxygen, you’re gonna have a bad time.
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