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[torturing-characters-101]

Is it possible for someone to pass out in mild freezing weather in just pajamas and develop frost bite bad enough to impair their hands and feet? How long would they be unable to walk or use their hands fully?

Probably not.

As you can see in this table, even at 10F (-12C) it takes well over 2 hours no matter how much wind there is to get even some frostbite, so mildly freezing temperatures probably wouldn't cut it.

Hypothermia, however, is a lot easier to get. Your character can get that with 40F and a drizzle.

[torturing-characters-101]

Is the whole "sucking poison out of a wound"-thing entirely fictional or is there some truth behind it?

This was a real recommendation in the mid-1900s, but it has been found to not work very well and probably do more harm than good.

It does not seem like sucking the venom out of a wound is particularly helpful. Or at least, not helpful enough to negate the risks associated with making a wound (most references that talk about sucking venom out of the wound also want you to cut across the wound) and then exposing the caregiver to blood against mucous membranes, which could transmit blood borne infections.

This cutting and then sucking venom extraction method seems to have been popular in the 1970s, but by the late 1980s it had gone out of favor. Today we use compression wraps to slow the spread of the venom instead.

[torturing-characters-101]

hello! can a parent stay in hospital with their (pre-school aged) child? even overnight? i imagine it might differ depending on each hospital's policy maybe?

It would depend on the hospital's policy, but most hospitals have gone back to 24/7 visitation where I am so I'd say, especially for a kid, that would most likely be allowed.

The thing is that most hospitals where I am don't do a lot to support visitors staying with family, so at most this parent would get a recliner. Maybe a cot. But they wouldn't get a bed or anything, and would have to go home to do things like shower. And if it's a 2-person room the total number of visitors may be very limited due to space.

[torturing-characters-101]

I don't wanna nag but the fandom posts are still happening haha maybe it's the queue?

We've checked and unfortunately that's not the issue. We're working to resolve it as quickly as possible, and have reached out to the misplaced poster.

-Mod J

[torturing-characters-101]

did one of you accidentally reblog a bunch of fandom stuff to the wrong blog or...?

Apparently! I woke up and was extremely confused by my dash for a minute haha. Fixed now. Appreciate your concern.

-mod J

[torturing-characters-101]

What up, whump fam?!

June of Doom 2024 Prompts!

We've brought back some old favorites/ popular prompts from last year with a healthy dash of new!

Please feel free to participate with original or fan works of any kind (writing, photos, gifs, mood boards, videos, songs, whatever creative medium your heart desires!). You can do one or all of the prompts on any given day, and if none are to your liking, check out the alternate prompts!

Two rules this year!

As with last year, tag your stuff with appropriate warnings, plzkthnx.

AI-created content is highly discouraged and frowned upon. I have no way of "checking", but I respect the time and effort people put into their crafts and encourage everyone to do the same. This isn't a contest for best written or prettiest art — it's a challenge, so challenge yourself.

Text list below the cut for easier crossings-off. And don't forget to tag @juneofdoom so I can reblog your awesome here! Have fun!

“Help me.”                                        | Failed Escape | On the Run | Fetal Position |

“It didn’t have to be this way.”             | Scream | Double Cross | Made to Watch |

“Well, well, well…”                            | Hiding | Ambushed | Stalking |

“Does that hurt?”                               | Impalement | Fracture | Punishment |

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”                 | Bite | Swelling | Disfiguration |

“They don’t care about you.”               | Flinch | Broken Promise | Abandoned |

“What happened?”                            | Nightmare | Isolation | Stumbling |

“This is your last chance.”                    | Drowning | Chair | Prisoner Trade |

“I made a mistake.”                            | Accident | Acceptance | Blame |

“Can you hear me?”                           | Fear | Smoke | Phone Call |

“We’re out of time.”                           | Bleeding Out | Collapse | Flatline |

“I can’t stand seeing you like this.”        | Dehydration | Grief | Coma |

“Wait!”                                             | Sacrifice | Adrenaline | Cornered |

“What were you thinking?”                  | Surrender | Human Shield | Outmatched |

“Get me out of here!”                         | Rescue | Chainsaw | Presumed Dead |

“At least it can’t get any worse.”           | Secret | Stranded | Setback |

“You don’t want to do that.”                | Struggle | Blackmail | Desperate Measures |

“I’m fine.”                                         | Self-defense | Allergies | Headache |

“This can’t be happening!”                  | Sobbing | Straitjacket | Dissociation |

“I can handle it.”                                | Scrape | Panic Attack | Neglect |

“Let’s play a game. “                           | Stairs | Pressure Points | Trap Door |

“What’s the bad news?”                      | Poison | Bedridden | Cauterization |

“You’re doing great.”                         | Trembling | Gaslighting | Rules |

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”                  | Blankets | Stitches | Bandages |

“I should have listened to you.”           | Guilt | Backseat | Failure |

“Don’t lie to me.”                               | Rage | Choke | Paranoia |

“Or what?”                                       | Defiance | Display | Last Resort |

“Say something.”                               | Numb | Cold Shoulder | Gag |

“I’m so cold.”                                    | Delirium | Fever | Exposure |

“Breathe, damn you!”                         | Shock | Asphyxiation | Emergency Room |

ALTERNATE PROMPTS

“Who did this to you?”

“Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not okay.”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“You poor thing.”

Attending Your Own Funeral

Broken Glass

Mask

Whip

Obedience

[torturing-characters-101]

Whumpril 2024 approaches!

Rules:

Anyone can participate.

Any media form is allowed (art, fic, gifs, music, whatever).

You can participate however much or as little as you want, no pressure to complete every single day.

You can post your work anywhere on the internet, Tumblr, Ao3, etc.

Tag potential triggers and NSFW accordingly.

If you want to be counted as an official participant and have the chance to be featured on the blog, post your content during the month of April. You can still use the prompt list after April ends.

I can’t guarantee that every single work will be featured but I’ll try to reblog as many as I can.

To increase your chances of being featured here, tag your post with the event name and the prompt of the day that you used (For example: #whumpril2024, #whumprilday1, #limp) 

You can also @ the blog, @whumpril.

Full write-up of the prompts can be found under the cut!

Whumpril 2024 Prompts:

Limp

Sweat  

Shame

Swaying  

Reckless

Dizziness

Hesitation

Bloodshot  

Self-Doubt

Adrenaline  

Can’t Sleep

Weak Pulse

Angry Tears  

Urgent Care  

Mind Games

Coughing Fit

Hallucination

Broken Glass

 “I need you.”

Touch Starved

“Just hold on.”

Stoicism Breaks

Presumed Dead  

No Time to Rest

“Brace yourself.”

“How could you?”

“Please don’t go.”

Fight/Flight/Freeze

Reluctant Caretaker

“We’re out of time.”

Alternative Prompts:

If there’s a prompt above you don’t feel inspired or comfortable doing, you can switch it out with one of these alternatives!

Crutch

Brain Fog

Contagious

No Appetite

Reassurance

Blanket Nest

Eyes Rolled Back

Allergic Reaction

“You’re pathetic.”

Reluctant Whumper

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Caretaker Makes it Worse

“You brought this on yourself.”

[torturing-characters-101]

What’s the exact difference between unconsciousness and coma? Can someone lie unconscious for a long period of time, even seen by visitors, and not be considered comatose?

Unconsciousness is an umbrella term for a state in which someone is not aware of their surroundings and is unable to respond to stimuli, such as talking or pain. There are different types of unconsciousness that fall under that umbrella.

The Glasgow Coma Scale is what medical professionals use to measure consciousness. It has 3 parts:

The number next to the response indicates the number of points someone gets for each category. For example, someone who opens their eyes to someone talking to them (3 points), can talk but is confused (4 points), and can obey commands like "squeeze my hand" (6 points) would score a 13.

To be considered unconscious, someone has to score 8 or less.

Coma is any period of unconsciousness lasting 6 or more hours.

[torturing-characters-101]

hi hello it’s me again lol

this time around i want to ask about this: in movies, sometimes a character would be knocked unconscious by getting a part of their neck pinched. what part is it? the carotid artery or some nerve? im asking because something like that happens in my wip and i wanted it to be more accurate

Unfortunately, the Vulcan Nerve Pinch is not a real thing.

It was made up by Leonard Nimoy in 1968 because Spock needed a better way of knocking Kirk out than hitting him over the head with a phaser (one might ask, if he had the phaser, could he not just...). It was then repeated in a lot of other media because it was cool.

Anyway, the closest IRL thing to the VNP is to hit someone really hard in the carotid sinus. This is the spot where the carotid artery splits into two. It contains receptors called baroreceptors, which monitor blood pressure. Hitting baroreceptors really hard in some people will falsely make the body believe that blood pressure is too high and drastically lower blood pressure momentarily, causing dizziness or unconsciousness. This will not last very long (like, in the realm of seconds).

Here's a pic if you want one:

[torturing-characters-101]

There's a 2007 lit review by Langlois in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology on the topic, so I'm happy to share with bruise anon:

- Blue, green, black, red, etc aren't good indicators of a bruise's age. These colors may all show up for various chemical reasons throughout the healing process. However combined with other observations such as tenderness (the area is painful to touch) they might be of some use.

- The exception is bright yellow, which only shows up when the hemoglobin starts to degrade, producing bilirubin. This may be masked by other colors in the bruise or by darker skin.

- It's not well known when bruises start turning yellow. Some studies have observed as early as 18 hours but on average about 48-72 hours.

- Some factors that might affect the appearance of a bruise include: type of object (fast objects bruise more than slow, squared edges bruise more than rounded edges), location (bony areas such as the face bruise more than the abdomen), age of the victim (most observations on how bruises heal have been done on adults and not children), blood clotting disorders, certain vitamin deficiencies, specific medications, history of injury (repeated bruises in the same location heal faster)

- Recently there have been efforts to use alternative light sources such as UV to detect bruises that might not be visible yet. This has been a really big deal for medical professionals who work with victims of violent crimes

I had to look at this article recently for a work task so I am happy to share!

Thanks for sharing

[torturing-characters-101]

How do ICU patients keep entertained? As in, if someone is mostly conscious but otherwise intubated/hooked to many machines and immobile, what do they do (or have done to them) to pass the time?

Mostly watch TV, read, look out the window, hang out with visitors, etc...

[torturing-characters-101]

Can you tell me about bruises? I've been trying to research but I think I'm pretty terrible at it. One thing I can't seem to find an answer to is how quickly they form? Like, if I have my blorbo take a hit, how long until the area is black and blue? Does it depend on some factors? What are those factors? TIA!

This is the best reference I have found for what bruise stages look like. Generally the "within 24 hours" section starts within 1-2 hours.

[torturing-characters-101]

How long does it take for fire to burn skin? Also if someone badly burned their hand in a fire and got treatment pretty quickly, what residual effects could they have? Any scars or missing fingers?

Within a few seconds of exposure to flame you're probably going to see some damage to tissue.

If someone badly burned their hand, they may need skin grafts taken from other parts of their body (like leg or arm) to mitigate severe scarring. Scars make it more difficult to move a part of the body, and very mobile parts of the body, like hands, would not do well if left to scar on their own.

So they'd need both grafts and physical and occupational therapy to recover from a severe burn. If a finger was so damaged that they couldn't repair it with grafts, part or all of it may need amputated.

All this along with skilled wound care and pain control, because burns are extremely painful.

[torturing-characters-101]

Yet another hypothermia ask lol (it’s just a topic i find very interesting for some reason):

1) First aid tips often mention that you should warm the person’s core, not their extremities, as that could cause pain and arrhythmias. However, other sources say that if the hypothermia has caused frostbite, the damaged tissue (often extremities) should be warmed (like putting a frostbitten hand into warm water). Don’t these two contradict? Also as per this, doesn’t this mean that wrapping person in electric blanket is a bad idea because it also rewarms extremities?

2)I’ve also seen it said that it’s a bad idea to give person a warm bath. Does that universally apply or is it ok to give bath as long as you make sure the water is only moderately warm and not like scalding hot?

3) Does hypothermia cause a drop in o2 saturation? Is warm humidified oxygen given for it only for the sake of internal rewarming or is it also needed for treating a lack of oxygen?

4)I’ve also heard people say that skin to skin isn’t the best of ideas unless absolutely necessary. Why is that?(heard something about it potentially exhausting the giver and making them cold too but I’m not sure how credible that is)

Thanks a lot for always answering my asks!

1- there are different "levels" of hypothermia, and for everything except the most severe you can warm the extremities usually without a problem. Basically, if someone is still conscious, warming the extremities at the same time as the core is sufficient. If someone is unconscious, you want to do your best to warm their core (putting warm packs in their armpits, neck and groin).

As for frostbite, it's not an emergency, so if you are trying to avoid warming the extremities, you can wait to treat the frostbite until someone is a normal temperature. You also never want to treat frostbite if there is a chance it could re-freeze, so typically you're waiting until the very last minute to treat the frostbite anyway- once the person is out of the wilderness setting and warmed up.

2- Generally you don't want to give someone a warm bath because there's usually some changes in mental status in hypothermia. Both that the person can't feel the temp of the water and they might slip under the water and drown if there's not someone physically holding their head up out of the water. A warm bath is also going to open up blood vessels near the surface of the body, which is usually the coldest, and supercharge cold blood going to the core, which will cause afterdrop (people getting colder even after treatment has begun) and the possibility of arrhythmia. These are both things we're trying to minimize.

3- Not necessarily. Mostly its for the internal rewarming.

4- I have not heard this. I suppose it could exhaust the giver, but most of the time if the giver is in the hypowrap too they're going to be warm enough for the both of them (hypowraps get really freaking warm inside). I would not do skin to skin without some kind of insulation though, since you don't want to strip down in the cold. Also, if one person in a group has hypothermia, generally a lot of people in the group have hypothermia, so finding another person to put in the hypowrap shouldn't be difficult.

[torturing-characters-101]

i've never been admitted to the hospital so i'm a little confused regarding the hospital gowns. is every patient required to wear them when they get admitted? or even when you visit a & e? or only certain patients depending on their ailment? if i remember correctly, when my dad was in hospital for appendicitis he just wore comfortable sweats and a t-shirt from home but i'm from a european country so that might differ as well... anyways i've always been a little confused about pretty much everything regarding hospitals so i hope you can help me out with this!

Nope, no one is required to wear a gown, and a lot of people do bring their own clothing or pajamas from home. The thing is there are a lot of things that can stain clothing in a hospital- blood, betadine, bleach, etc... and we generally will suggest if someone wants to keep their clothing nice that they wear a gown instead.

[torturing-characters-101]

I'm curious if it's possible to perform resuscitation on someone that has been deceased for a while before they were found. Putting aside them already potentially being brain dead. Would you technically be able to get their heart beating again using traditional resuscitation methods?

In addition to the brain, CPR also feeds the heart oxygenated blood, and for every minute CPR is delayed, the chance of successful resuscitation drops by about 10%. So I'd say it depends on how long the person has been down.

If the person has been dead for less than 10 or maybe on the outside 15 minutes, yes, it would be possible to bring the person back regardless of brain death. But beyond that the person has a very high amount of acid in their blood, and their heart would not respond to the types of interventions normally used to bring someone back in the event of cardiac arrest.

The caveat to this is someone who is extremely hypothermic. Especially in children, it is possible to get the heart beating again in the half hour to 45 minute range after death, and sometimes even with a good neurological outcome as well.

[torturing-characters-101]

on a Google spree for one of my WIPs, I learned that people often go through physical therapy for a broken leg both before and after the cast is off. What would that entail?

I'm not a physical therapist, so take the following with a grain of salt:

Before the cast comes off, the therapy is mostly to make sure that the person is able to safely and comfortably move through the world with a mobility aide like crutches or a walker. While they may seem intuitive, there are specific ways these must be used to prevent other injuries and minimize the risk of falls.

After the cast comes off the person needs to strengthen the leg and regain function in a safe and comfortable way. If you've ever had a cast come off, you know the limb is barely functional after that much time immobile, so it's not like you can immediately walk on a leg that has been in a cast for 2-6 months without therapy- especially if we're talking about a larger bone like a femur.