How does injecting into the heart not make a fatal hole?

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In Pulp Fiction, they take a syringe of adrenalin & strike it through the breastplate with immediate effect. My main question, assuming this has some basis in fact, is that the needle, solidly held by bone and presumably puncturing a ventricle, would be moved against by the heart causing a tear which would surely kill you. Even if it doesn’t, if muscle is so tough the heart moves around the needle, I’m still concerned about the needle hole. That’s before we get to the whole adrenalin thing. Positioning. Length of needle. Technique & needle breakages. Immediate effect. So yeah, go for it, put my mind at rest 🙂

In: Biology

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

[It’s all movie myth](https://gizmodo.com/why-the-movie-myth-of-injecting-medication-into-the-hea-1425811317). There are no current procedures at all where a doctor would put a needle in someone’s heart to inject medicine. It is all made up for dramatic effect in movies.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I haven’t had a needle in the heart, but I have had a needle in the kidney which is actually more vascular than your heart, so I’m told. The hole from the needle bleeds a little and then the blood clots in the hole. You are instructed to lie very still for hours and hours to keep from disturbing the clot while it is new. Then the whole thing heals over time.

Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s a movie. It’s fiction. It has no basis in reality. There is no treatment in modern medicine that requires a doctor to stick a needle into your heart.

Edit for clarity because apparently people need it. Intracardiac injections are a thing. Jamming a needle into a person’s heart through the sternum *as depicted in Pulp Fiction because* ***that’s what OP is asking about*** is NOT a thing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m guessing it’s the same reason why you don’t bleed out and die when you get a blood test: the hole is too small.