Blood squirt ( blood spurt, blood spray, blood gush, or blood jet) is a projectile expulsion of blood when an artery is ruptured. Blood pressure causes the blood to bleeding out at a rapid, intermittent rate in a spray or jet, coinciding with the pulse, rather than the slower, but steady flow of vein bleeding. Also known as arterial bleeding, arterial spurting, or arterial gushing, the amount of blood loss can be copious, occur very rapidly,
Anatomy
In cut
carotid arteries with 100 mL of blood through the heart at each beat (at 65 beats a minute), a completely severed artery will spurt blood for about 30 seconds and the blood will not spurt much higher than the human head. If the artery is just nicked, on the other hand, the blood will spurt longer, but will be coming out under pressure and spraying much further.
[ "How writers fill in all the gory details", Humphrey Evans, The Guardian, 22 July 2004, retrieved 17 March 2010]
To prevent hand ischemia, there is a "squirt test" that involves squirting blood from the radial artery, which is used in intraoperative assessment of collateral arm blood flow before radial artery Organ harvesting.[ Intraoperative confirmation of ulnar collateral blood flow during radial artery harvesting using the "squirt test" , Inderpaul Birdi and Andrew J. Ritchie of Papworth Hospital, The Annals of Thoracic Surgery at CTSNet, 2002] This is more commonly called "Allen's test" by microvascular surgeons, and is used before harvesting radial artery based free tissue transfers.
In 1933, a murder trial prompted a testimony from Dr. Clement Harrisse Arnold about how far blood could spurt from the neck: vertically and laterally.[ "Medicine: Blood Spurt", Time, 8 April 1935, retrieved 17 March 2010]
Iconography
Chinnamasta, a self-decapitated Hindu goddess, is
iconography holding her head with three jets of blood spurting out of her bleeding neck, which are drunk by her severed head and two attendants.
Saint Miliau, a Christian martyr killed c. 6th century AD, is sometimes represented holding his severed head, as in the
retable of the Passion of the Christ at Lampaul-Guimiliau, where blood gushes from his neck.
Insects and animals
Some animals deliberately autohaemorrhage or squirt blood (or an analogous bodily fluid) as a defense mechanism.
, which are native to Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana, drive away predators by spewing
vomit and spurting
hemolymph (the mollusk and arthropod equivalent of blood) from under their legs and through slits in their exoskeleton.
do it too, and in Germany the species has acquired the nickname "Blutspritzer", or "blood squirter". The
horned lizard also uses the blood-spewing tactic, shooting the substance from a pocket near its eyes.
[ "See It to Believe It: Animals Vomit, Spurt Blood to Thwart Predators" , Allison Bond, Discover blog, 28 July 2009, retrieved 17 March 2010]
One of the oriental rat flea mouth's two functions is to squirt partly digested blood into a bite.
See also
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Bullet hit squib, the special effect simulating blood spilling out of a gunshot wound
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Bloodstain pattern analysis, in forensic science
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Bodily mutilation in film#Blood
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Spurt of Blood, a 1925 French surreal play
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Theatrical blood
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