I am doing some research on this topic for my story. I know that drug addicts sometime do this, but my story is more of a steampunk setting. (Kinda.) But, what I really want to know is how much water can cause someone to die. Second, I heard someone on Quora state that it's actually very painful and I want to know if anyone else heard this. Because I only have one account of this and I know that if someone injects too much, it causes the blood cells to rupture and die. I understand the science behind it, but I want to know what my character might feel.
Injecting sterile salt water (saline) into the bloodstream does no harm, as far as I can tell. I have this done to me regularly on dialysis. A medical professional will correct me if I'm wrong but I believe excess fluid in the bloodstream is absorbed by the tissues. The reverse of this is certainly true. Of course, if you inject too much too quickly, it could cause blood vessels to rupture.
I am thinking more like regular water. Like tap water. I know too much will offset the blood water balance and I am very curious to know how much. Because I need a way for my bad guy to get information out of my vampire character. And I assume destroying his blood cells would not be a good thing for him.
What you're talking about is called water intoxication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication I've never heard of water intoxication occurring by injection. The amount of water needed to kill someone is several liters going into the blood in a short period of time. Your kidneys constantly drain off the extra water in the blood into your urine. They drain out a liter per hour. That's a lot more than just one a single syringe. It normally happens when someone drinks far too much water, and the blood becomes diluted. It's a very rare way of dying. Injecting water is more likely to cause death by infection from dirty needles than water intoxication.
The largest syringes i could find are only 50 ml syringes. You'd have to inject someone 16-20 times with one of those in an hour, just to even equal the kidneys' ability to get rid of the water. Most of the cases of water intoxication I could find involved at least 5 liters of water. That's 100 syringes of water in less than a few hours--assuming of course you have big fat 50 ml syringes. If you're using thin little 5 ml syringes, that number goes up to 1000 injections. I hate to say it but your idea of death by water injection just isn't going to happen.
What about using a—I don't know what's it's called, but when they hang a bottle or a bag and run a line directly into a vein in the arm? Only rather than a drip feed it's set up to dump water in fast. Like enema bag fast. Lol, MC could MacGyver together an enema setup with the medical drip feed thing. To force water in fast he might need to make an outlet hole somewhere too for blood to run out through. Like when you have to open that inlet valve in a gas can, ya know? Or when you shotgun a beer and have to make 2 holes. And how about using something other than plain water? Something that would aggressively attack the blood cells. Don't ask me what though. An acid or alkali or something. If you really want to get cool and MacGyver-ish he could have a gun that shoots the needle, hose attached, into the vamp's arm or whatever vein (maybe a major artery for faster injection).
You mean an intravenous bag like the ones used in the IV therapy? The bags you are thinking of are used for drips. That's far too slow. The kidneys will just filter it out. You're not killing someone with a drip bag. I looked on Wikipedia and large syringes are used for fast-acting bolus injections. I look already took a look at the largest syringes; they're 50 ml. They would be used for this. It's a hundred injections to kill. Seriously what heroin addict is going is going to do an IV bolus injection a hundred times? If you need a character dead an overdose of heroin will work.
Like hook up a hose to a faucet and a giant hollow needle and turn the handle? A friend sent herself into water intoxication many years ago when she went on a juice and water cleanse and had a wee drop too much. First she had convulsions, then she woke up in the hospital following a coma. I don't think anyone would've gotten any information out of her by that method. Vampires don't do sun. Torture the information out of the little bloodsucker with light: lasers, a tanning bed, a solar panel, penlight flashlights, opening the venetian blinds slat by slat.
Saline is not sterile water. Saline has a proper amount salt in it to match one's own tissues. As for injection plain sterile water, it's darn hard to get enough to matter. Water intoxication on the other hand is a real thing. Generally it comes from a person drinking so much water they end up with hyponatremia. Anecdote from the files of Ginger Coffee: I had a patient once that was hyponatremic and the docs were trying to figure out why. I found her in the bathroom chugging milk of magnesia her son had brought in for her. She was convinced she needed the MoM for a proper bowel movement. Problem solved.
What about instead of adding to the system, take out blood. Kinda like starving a Vampire, and weakening them. Though you haven't established the rules for your type of Vampires, to know for sure what will/won't work. Though you could use a large gauge needle, somewhere in the 10-0 range, and inject minced garlic into 'em. That would be hell considering it might burn as well as cause other damage to a Vamp. Or water with silver powder in it. Acupuncture with silver needles that are in a vessel of holy water. Fang removal with pliers or extraction equipment. Could just go old school and beat him with a heavy hardbound bible (kinda like the phone book technique).
Fired from a fully automatic assault needle gun of course. With tiny crucifixes engraved on each needle and blessed by a priest.
I believe it was Steve-O from jackass who hooked himself up to an IV bag of vodka...and he is (somehow) still alive. I'm pretty sure that while you could mess yourself up with non-sterile anything being injected into you, you would probably survive water just fine...
I have actually looked into this type of death a long time ago. I still want to use it somehow. Thanks for the information and I agree. A single syringe may not be enough, but I also wanted to know the effect of temporary over saturation of water in the bloodstream. Because this water is bypassing the stomach and intestines.
True... that could happen. The thing is, I want to know what happens with the water isn't sent through the digestive system. Oh, that acid idea sounds great. Any ideas on what that acid might be? Because the main goal here is to destroy blood cells. I just went for water, because I know that with too much water in the bloodstream, the cells will explode. Also, sorry for not replying for so long. I had a very busy week.
Oh, sorry about your friend. Anyway, sunlight does damage my vampires, but more in a bad sun-burn way. I don't think it can light them on fire and if it does, it's not enough to make them a walking torch.
Thank you for this information. Yeah, the thing is, this isn't sterile water. Just basic water, without the salt. And the physiology of my vampires differ, so they can't have any human food. Sure, they may need a shot-glass of water every so often, but I am wondering what happens when the balance is disrupted and blood cells are being destroyed. I am going to figure it's the same kind of shock that happens when someone is given the wrong type of blood and that leads to shock.
All of your ideas are GREAT. Can I use them in another Vampire book? Because this one is more of a realistic kind of vampire. (Sort of.) It's more of a medical illness in this one. So silver, garlic, and the bible don't really do anything. But I LOVE all of these ideas. Especially the acupunture. XD
It's not the sterility that is the issue, it's volume of water to sodium. You can ingest (drink) too much water and you can infuse too much water; timing and volume would differ but not the end result. Your kidneys would get rid of the excess water as fast as they could. And they would conserve sodium. That's why it would take a lot of water.
You'd need to consult some medical forum for that type of info, but since they are vampires you'd have some flexibility. I know with substances like alcohol that are 'toxic' your liver or kidneys help remove a lot of impurities. Which is why (I think) it takes less volume to get drunk through 'butt chugging than regular alcohol consumption and is dangerous. If you don't know what that is, just ignore this reply.
I know next to nothing about acid. A little bit from experiments in 6th grade science class, and then experiments just after high school, though that probably isn't the kind of acid you're looking for (actually, there could be a great story there... ) From Return of the Living Dead I know there's a kind called Aqua Regia that's very powerful. Then there was the kind Walt had Jessie buy in Breaking Bad for dissolving the body, but I don't remember what kind it twas. Nitric maybe? Hydrochloric? Just guessing.
Are your vampires immune to the usual materials, like garlic, silver, holy water, and sunlight? Any of those (aside from sunlight) could be injected or used in other creative ways.
My previous reply got me thinking. You mentioned you wanted to know what would happen when water or other substances bypass the digestive system. In some vampire stories, vampires don't really need to eat regular food (but sometimes can out of habit or to hide their undead status). You could have a plot device where vampire digestive systems evolve to differ from human digestive systems and maybe human ignorance of this leads to surprises.