How long it would it take to recover from an abdominal knife wound?

[TheSinisterSmiler]

The character is a male, 17-20 years old, in good health, who receives a large slash wound to the lower left abdomen in a fight. He needs a blood transfusion, but it doesn't strike any organs. How long would it take for him to completely recover from the injury?

Thanks for any help, I'm new here.

[Canotila]

If he doesn't have any major injuries how does he lose enough blood to need a transfusion?

If it's a slash, does it open up the abdominal cavity or just go through surface skin and muscle? A slash that goes into the abdominal cavity is likely to sever a bunch or organs, vs. a puncturing stab which may miss organs.

What kind of recovery time do you need? Depending how deep/long the cut is, your character might need to avoid heavy lifting and activity for a few weeks. As someone who has had minor abdominal surgery I can say that it feels terrible to have an injury to your stomach area, and that was just tiny punctures so they could look around with a camera. Your body just wants to protect it, and it's hard not to walk all hunched over even after it's healed. You can tailor your character's injury to what you need for the story though.

[JohnnyGottaKeyboard]

Hey, I live with an ER nurse, so checked with her.

You said the character did not suffer any damage to vital organs--are you sold on this? An ab slice above the waist could conceivably knick either the liver (right) or the spleen (left). Both of which can be major bleeders. That could account for the transfusion, but would not extend the recovery much past one or two months (faster for a younger character, slower for an older character).

Hope this helps.

[TheSinisterSmiler]

Thanks, that really clears it up!

[blacbird]

Could take eternity. Depends entirely on what it damaged inside.

caw

[Evaine]

One of my characters had this problem - I made it a wild slashing cut, so he lost blood but nothing vital was hit, and gave him a long boat trip afterwards so he could partially recover, enough to get to where he needed to go. (His ex-wife was trying to kill him).