How does amputation help save your life if you are bleeding to death?
Question:
Another thing is:
How is it that if you sever a artery in the leg or the arm, you can bleed to death quickly but if your arm or leg gets blown clean of.you might not die?
Answers:
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for such problems. In Islamic countries, amputation of the hands or feet is sometimes used as a form of punishment for criminals. In some cultures and religions, minor amputations or mutilations are considered a ritual accomplishment
Method
The first step is ligating the supplying artery and vein, to prevent hemorrhage. The muscles are transsected, and finally the bone is sawed through with an oscillating saw. Skin and muscle flaps are then transposed over the stump, occasionally with the insertion of elements to attach a prosthesis. In a disarticulation amputation, the bone is removed at the joint.
After-effects
Some amputees experience the phenomenon of phantom limbs[1]; they feel body parts that are no longer there. These limbs can itch, ache, and feel as if they are moving. Some scientists believe it has to do with a kind of neural map that the brain has of the body, which sends information to the rest of the brain about limbs regardless of their existence. Phantom sensations and phantom pain may also occur after the removal of body parts other than the limbs, e.g. after amputation of the breast, extraction of a tooth (phantom tooth pain) or removal of an eye (phantom eye syndrome).
In many cases, the phantom limb aids in adaptation to a prosthesis, as it permits the person to experience proprioception of the prosthetic limb.
Another side-effect can be heterotopic ossification, especially when a bone injury is combined with a head injury. The brain signals the bone to grow instead of scar tissue to form, and nodules and other growth can interfere with prosthetics and sometimes require further operations. This type of injury has been especially common among soldiers wounded by IEDs in the occupation of Iraq.
Types of amputation include:
leg
amputation of digits
partial foot amputation (Chopart, Lisfranc)
ankle disarticulation (Syme, Pyrogoff)
below-knee amputation (transtibial)
knee-bearing amputation (knee disarticulation)
above knee amputation (transfemoral)
Van-ness rotation (Foot being turned around and reattached to allow the ankle joint to be used as a knee.)
hip disarticulation
hemipelvectomy
arm
amputation of digits
metacarpal amputation
wrist disarticulation
forearm amputation (transradial)
elbow disarticulation
above-elbow amputation (transhumeral)
shoulder disarticulation and forequarter amputation
teeth
The avulsion of some teeth (mainly incisives) is or was practiced by some cultures for ritual purposes (for instance in the Iberomaurusian culture of Neolithic North Africa).
Hemicorporectomy, or amputation at the waist, is the most radical amputation.
Genital modification and mutilation may involve amputating tissue, although not necessarily as a result of injury or disease.
As a rule, partial amputations are preferred to preserve joint function, but in oncological surgery, disarticulation is favored.
Other Answers:
That's not the purpose of amputation, they don't do it because of blood, they do it because of infections that might spread to the body, so they have to take it out.
that's a very in depth question read a book or go to med school.
Amputation wasn't invented to keep from bleeding to death. It was made if a limb or somewhere was seriously injured, it could be removed to keep it from getting infected or rotting if a lot of tissue dies. (EEEW . . . You wouldn't want that to happen would you?
Maybe if something is blown clean it is cauterized (burned) so that the arteries close. Ugh what thoughts are you having?
dont know. interesting
the first question has sumtin to do with infection the second is that arteries is were blood flows if it gets blown of the explosion might actualy scab the wound more quickly.
Source(s):
medical encyclopedia
my leg was taken off do to flesh eating bacteria.the infection was just about to cross over in to my main artery so they had to take off my leg at the hip.i have what is known as hip disarticulation and himipelvectomy.
Source(s):
not a very good personal experiance
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