Gun shot advice

[elisheva_m]

The big melodramatic action climax of the lakorn I'm writing involves a gun fight (tropey genres x 2, realism is a bonus). Key characters escape, but it's too much to ask that it's unscathed or that they all only have grazes.

What's a good location for a gun shot wound which, let's say, requires stitches but can plausibly be expected to heal without complications? Arm or leg as they had the magical protection of body armour and being main characters. They've made it to a safe location with supplies prepared in advance and with the expectation of bullet wounds. One in particular has been around violence for over a decade and has experience.

I have a good enough idea on graze wounds for my needs - these really are "little details" in the lakorn and I'm just trying to calm the melodrama a bit with something heading in the vague direction of realism :D :D  It's been harder to figure out a wound which conveys "serious" (ie stitches as an emotional stand-in for surgery) but won't be difficult to treat for someone with good supplies and experience.

So rather than asking if this or that might work for you all to tell me it won't, I figured i'd just ask for suggestions on the location(s) from the start :D :D

TIA and thanks for replies to my earlier question.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Another option might be that the more serious injury you want comes from the environment rather than directly from a bullet. Broken glass can give you some nasty and deep cuts that absolutely need stitching, and shooting often results in broken glass. The character could be hit by some or fall onto some.

[elisheva_m]

Oh, I hadn't thought of something like that. (I am so out of my comfort zone with aspects of this lakorn.) Thank you :) :) :)

They're outside and in an open area, so broken glass is ruled out and there are limited options but maybe I can think of something. Will let it percolate awhile.

[arctowardthesun]

Outside and in an open area would provide plenty of opportunity to fall onto broken glass, either in being shot or in avoiding getting shot?

[elisheva_m]

The most glass that's plausible in this location is an old broken beer bottle.
I'm being cautious as to how much information I share here because I might (hopefully) be seeking beta readers from DW at some point and their not knowing will be more useful to me for insight on dramatic flow, how well things have been foreshadowed etc than this small part.

[full_metal_ox]

“Outside and in an open area” is fairly broad territory; are we talking an urban setting, where she might bang into a railing or sharp sculpture? A natural setting, perhaps with stones, thorns, or old wooden fences?

[elisheva_m]

Yes, I've been being vague about the exact location in case this gets to the point where I might ask for beta readers on DW.
As much as I like lilacsigal's suggestion, trying to implement it in this particular setting bogs the action down with words and creates a new moment of implausibility. The gunfight and what happens immediately after are high melodrama, so they need to be more emotion than explanation.

Pallas_rose's reply about stitches being rare for gunshot wounds got me headed down another path, which is in keeping with character, where they are in the plot and lakorn as a genre. Bandaging it up that night with the expectation that this will be enough, except she doesn't sleep because [spoilers :D ] and aggravates it is more than plausible. It is 100% what she would do, and will continue to do, so it's a much better fit than trying to explain in a sharp object which shouldn't be in the setting and how she managed to fall/interact with it in a way which gave her a serious wound.

This grounds it in the characters and their emotions quickly, which is how good lakorns manage their melodrama. The draft currently does have stitches to help keep some of the intensity as I step it down into more regular life. Is it what a doctor would have done? Possibly not. But these characters, it fits :D

[azurelunatic]

I was lucky enough to have a stupid kitchen accident with a steak knife where it went in at a very slanted angle along the outside of my arm, mostly hitting fat and just nicking a muscle. I got the wound numbed, flushed with saline, two stitches, and a large hospital bill. (The circumstances were funny enough that I dressed up as that injury some years later for Halloween.) I could (not a doctor, not an anatomist) see that happening either in a buttock or in the belly fat that many women, even fit ones, often have.