lemonavenue

I have a character who has seen a lot of gun fights and, as a consequence, has a few bullets still buried in his chest or maybe other parts of his body. Obviously none of these shots were fatal. Most of these bullets have been with him a long time, let's say over ten years. My questions are pretty specific and I've had trouble reasearching them, so hopefully someone here has some answers.

1. What kind of affect would this have on his body long term? Would the bullets decay over time? Is there a chance of lead poisoning? (I have heard of people who lived unknowingly for years with nails inside them.)

2. Can bullets move around inside the body? Would it be possible for him to cough one up years after being shot?

3. Would he set off metal detectors?

Incase anyone asks, my character has a huge phobia of doctors and usually avoids them unless he thinks his life is in danger, so there's little chance of him discovering them unless they start causing discomfort. Or setting off metal detectors.

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Luc

There are various types of bullets, which first depends what era you set the story in. Bullets today come in different types, i know some are made to spiral into the body to cause signficant damage, split into shrapnel. The design of the bullet today has reached near perfection, those who get shot by it generally don't have a good chance of survival and long term effects depend on how fast they recived treatment.

I know accounts of people who got hit by nail bombs but physically their condtion became worse due to the nails in part, removed or not, the impact was enough to hurt the body internally.

All I know is that is that if your character (again depending on the era and quality of treatment and his physique) did have some bullets lodged in him then the scaring would be signficant (which would depend on the type) even ten years on. Any shot can be fatal, a pellet gun can kill if its aimed right and fired at the most damaging range. What needs to be estabilished if the type of bullet, the range it was fired from and the era and treatment that was there at the time. Those decide how lasting his wounds are and how close to being fatal the bullets were. Movies and even novels can be misleading info because nobody likes the realisim of having the hero being on the bed for weeks before he is able to do anything again.

lemonavenue

The bullets I'm thinking of come from a post civil war time period and were probably fired from Colt revolvers, a popular gun in the wild west. I asked about metal detectors because my character has an immortal lifespan, assuming nobody chops off his head, so he's bound to come in contact with them eventually.

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Mark Carter

I can already guess that this is probably going to become an over technical debate thread as the Gun Question thread has become but after reading your question a couple thoughts did cross my mind. If your character is immortal and can only be killed by decapitation then why worry about lead poisoning? If your character was shot with an "old west" era bullet it would probably give him blood poisoning of some type eventually but if he's immortal you could merely state that the toxic level would never climb high enough to kill him. Maybe you could depict him with early symptoms of poisoning and explain that it would take a century or more for it to kill someone of his nature.


As for the movement of shrapnel: most shrapnel embedded in flesh or muscle will rise upward towards the skin over time and this is probably sped up more if the shrapnel is lodged in muscle that gets a lot of exercise (like a leg). I've read several accounts of people who have had shrapnel removed years later because it eventually rose closer to the skin and made the removal easier. Shrapnel lodged in organs may act differently and you can always depict your character as having some sort of dysfunction because the bullet is disrupting his organ's natural function. Frankly there's not much chance of anyone spitting up a bullet years later unless you can explain how the bullet entered his GI tract so long after the injury. If the bullet entered his GI tract upon entry he might have spit it up (or shit it out!) fairly soon but if he spits it up years later you have to account for how the bullet shifted into his GI tract or freed itself from the surrounding scar tissue. You could say that the shrapnel is sharp and it cut it's way thru his tissue but the same problem returns--if it was sharp it would have cut thru the tissue much sooner. Maybe you could say that the bullets moved if your character took a good beating in another fight years later.


Either way, he would certainly set off metal detectors and the bullets would show in X-rays from doctors or security checkpoints. Also, I suspect the bullets would retain some radiation after each X-ray. With enough X-rays done on him the bullets might retain enough radiation to make him sick. Maybe he can use that as a reason for not visiting doctors.

Sam Winchester

I have an uncle who was shot three times in Belfast. The bullets were all shot at his midsection, and two of them were successfully removed, but the third was too close to the heart to risk it. He's still alive, twenty years on, and he hasn't had any complications.

To answer your questions, Lemonavenue.

1. Because they are made of lead, bullets do not decay. I don't think there's much chance of lead poisoning, which is treatable in any case.

2. It usually lodges somewhere, but there have been cases where it can move. No, I don't think you can cough one up, unless it was lodged in the lungs to begin with.

3. Of course he would set off metal detectors.

lemonavenue

I was merely using decapitation as an example. There are other ways he can be killed, which may become aparent if I post the short story I'm planning on writing. The reason I asked is because I'm not sure if lead poisoning will affect him and I wanted to get a base line by asking what effects it would have on a human, then building up from there.

I would love for this to become a debate thread actually. You can get a ton of good information off debate threads.

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jacobworld

good question
shame people are testing it all the time . Maybe you should ask some soldiers that got shot I know few of them.

greg

bang bang

Mike C

Which means that you make up the rules. If you want him to spit up bullets 100 years after getting shot, do it. If you want him to carry them around, jingling like loose change, do it. If the guy's immortal then normal rules really don't apply.

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