Blood? A lethal killer?
It is a bit challenging to wrap your head around the fact that blood-the life-giver, can be the cause of your death.
Donating blood is a humanitarian act, whereas losing blood could be lethal.
#Did you know losing more than 40% of your blood could be fatal?
Yes, you heard it right. There are about 2,000 mL or 0.53 gallons of blood in the average adult. And losing more than 800 mL of blood is fatal.
According to WHO, an estimated 5million people lost their lives due to this, roughly about 9% of the global annual mortality rate.
50% of these deaths were of people between the ages 15 and 44. There are twice as many males as females. The causes of bleed outs can be violence (interpersonal and self-inflicted), war, and accidents. The total number of deaths caused in the year 2000 was 1.6 million.
Not only this, 1.2 million deaths and 20-50 million road injuries per year occur due to road traffic accidents, which is 2.1% of over mortality rate.
Now, these types of bleeding do not only happen on an operating table and road accidents. It can be for various other, non-lethal reasons as well.
Here’s how a lot of blood is lost:
- Blood donation
- A nosebleed
- A bleeding hemorrhoid
- Menstruation
- A miscarriage
- Childbirth
- Lab testing
- Surgery
To properly understand why even a little scratch or a small wound can lead to significant blood loss, we need to be familiar with the types of bleeding that occur if not controlled in time.
Types of bleeding
When you watch a horror movie, you see blood spurting out of the victim’s wound. But, do you ever wonder why the blood is spurting out and not flowing out slowly?
It is because there is more than one type of bleeding.
There are three types of bleeding. Bleeding differs in location, flow, and severity.
- Arterial bleeding – comes out in spurts
- Venous bleeding – flows steadily
- Capillary bleeding – trickles from the body
How much blood loss can be lethal?
You will experience nausea if blood loss reaches 15 to 30 % of overall blood volume. This quantity of loss will increase your heart rates. You might also additionally experience stress or uneasiness.
Passing out
The body begins to make amends for blood loss by constricting the blood vessels of your limbs and extremities. This is the body’s attempt to hold your blood stress and blood flow.
When blood loss nears 30 to 40 percent of total blood volume, the body will have a traumatic reaction. Blood pressure will drop even further, and the heart rate will increase. The person may show signs of evident confusion or disorientation before fainting.
Fatal blood loss
Without treatment, the original intervention measures, your body will lose its ability to pump blood and maintain oxygen delivery once you’ve lost about 50 percent of your blood volume.
Bottom line
Your body can cope up with blood loss. However, the way it takes place, the kind of loss, and how much you lose determine plenty about the outcome.
The world’s first and only primary hemostatic agents- SeraSeal™, World’s first and only primary hemostatic agent, require no preparation time and can stop the bleeding within seconds. This innovation brought to us by Swasth Kare India is a new ray of hope and a big help for medical professionals – it reduces blood loss by 90%.
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