Katerina Asks:

My character, Faith, is stabbed with a switch blade (about  8.5 cm long)  in the lower abdomen. I have three questions about this.

1. Can she die from this and how long would it take?
2. Would she have to go to the hospital?
3. If she survives will there be any permanent or semi  permanent  damage?

Jordyn Says:

Hi Katerina! Thanks so much for sending me your question.

You don’t give specifics on exactly where in the lower abdomen your character gets stabbed (left, right, or mid line). If stabbed in the lower abdomen, there are fewer things that can be hit that will cause you to die immediately— generally from blood loss. Though there is that descending aorta to worry about.

The lower abdomen mostly contains intestines, the bladder, and reproductive organs for the female. A person can die from injury to these body parts– most likely from infection leading to septic shock. This would be unlikely should your character receive medical care shortly after the injury.

If you choose to go this route, I would say death from sepsis could be as early as 48-72 hours to as long as a few weeks. On the early side if the character did not receive any medical treatment and there are some nasty germs either on the knife or the intestines are punctured leading to contamination of the abdominal cavity and no surgical repair or antibiotics are given.

Longer if there is surgery and antibiotic therapy but the person is infected with a resistant strain of a bacteria or fungus, or is immunocompromised, etc.

A stab wound of this type should be evaluated in the hospital. Again, this would be up to you as the author and what kind of conflict you want to have for your story.

It’s hard to say if this character would have any lasting effects from the wound as you don’t give specifics as to the injury.

Best of luck with your story.