So, a bit of insight on this character. She's a survivalist/biologist (not sure yet if one, or both) and during an expedition she would have had her throat cut/bit by either a bear or wolf. That expedition happens somewhere in Canada, exact location unsure yet. It's a really strange question, but I hope you can answer.
Or even just being an idiot panicked and screaming their head off when they realized they were lost, alone, and in danger with hundreds of kilometers of empty tundra and boreal forest between them and civilization. I would find fighting a wild animal less believable only because if a wolf or bear got your throat, chances are they'd finish the job
I came to say the same. Vocal cords are not actual cords. They aren't something that can be snipped from the outside like guitar strings. They are more of a modified sphincter, and as @Carriage Return points out, so deeply nested inside the throat structure that an external bite or wound caused by such an animal that reaches said sphincter sounds like a dead character to me, no matter what that ten-minute mother bear mauling scene in The Revenant might lead one to believe about the survivability of such an event. So, my question becomes: Is the mauling itself an important part of the creation of this character, or are we just trying to arrive at a character who can't speak due to damaged vocal cords, a thing that happened as part of her professional life? An infection that went untreated would be infinitely more buyable to me as a reader than a surgical mauling.
Just by looking at a diagram of the human throat I could see this idea wasn't really feasible. The chances are she'd bleed to death since their on an expedition and unlike to have anyone close enough to provide the medical care she'd need. So why does this action need to happen? There are lots of far more believable ways someone could lose their voice, even if slightly, so do some research.
