For some context, I’m thinking about writing a story set in a deliberately anachronistic world with several different historical time periods (anywhere from the Bronze Age to just barely touching the industrial revolution) meshed together into one setting. In other words, something akin to my own personal “Hyborian age”. My villain “protagonist” OC is a pirate that has recently been arrested by authorities belong to an early modern European analogue. In exchange for being pardoned, he joins a state sanctioned scalp hunting gang. They are sent out to stamp out a peasant revolt. As a side note, this was influenced by both the peasant uprisings in Vendee during the French Revolution and when the Mexican government hired American scalp hunters to curb Apache and Comanche raids during the 1850s. In a particular skirmish, my OC is attacked by a peasant with a war scythe. I’m thinking about having my OC receiving a serious leg wound in that encounter. However, I’m concerned about the feasibility of him getting his leg slashed open, and not bleeding out from a severed artery. What are some plausible scenarios where my OC could survive such a severe leg wound, if any? If not, what are other alternative debilitating but livable injuries could my OC suffer through in that situation? Is my question making sense to anyone here? I’m having a difficult time finding the right words for it, and my knowledge regarding anything related to the medical field is rather elementary level at best. So apologies for my poor usage of
What comes to mind is that the injured person could have his wound dealt with in the following ways: **These all have drawbacks, pick the one you like best** 1. Bind the wound as tight as possible. This can be because his armour holds the leg together or some type of cloth binding. 2. Seal the wound quickly....I think this is quack medicine but I do remember reading somewhere that a wound was sealed with something like pitch/tar. I don't really know how that would work, I think it's just a made up quackery thing because such a "treatment" would cause problems down the line with infection and poisoning from the sealing agent. If you had something like polysporin or vaseline, that might work. Alchemists might have something that could work. 3. In Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying games, movies (Rambo: First Blood Part I), books, tv shows like MacGyver, the quick and dirty fix is to cauterize the wound. This is done by taking a knife or sword, heating it up in a fire and then pressing it against the flesh so it cooks and seals the wound. I can see this working but I don't know the specifics, like if the wound is too deep, too wide, etc. You have to be able to seal the wound and stop the bleeding somehow. If you have gunpowder, I think MacGyver sprinkled some on a wound and then burned it off, leaving a sealed wound behind. Personally, I wonder when you write "a peasant with a war scythe" - how much training does this peasant have? Maybe he actually closes his eyes and just swings blindly in combat because....well, he's a peasant. Professional soldiers sometimes go through a battle without hitting anyone, right? And those are trained people. The combination can cause your OC to receive a wound that isn't necessary fatal - if he treats it fast - although quite painful.
