Blood Vessels Affected
External bleeding is generally described in terms of the origin of the blood flow by vessel type. The basic categories of external bleeding are:
- Arterial bleeding: As the name suggests, blood flow originating in an artery. With this type of bleeding, the blood is typically bright red to yellowish in colour, due to the high degree of oxygenation. Blood typically exits the wound in spurts, rather than in a steady flow. The amount of blood loss can be copious, and can occur very rapidly.
- Venous bleeding: This blood is flowing from a damaged vein. As a result, it will be blackish in colour (due to the lack of oxygen being transported) and will flow in a steady manner. Caution is still indicated; while the blood loss may not be arterial, it can still be quite substantial, and can occur with surprising speed without intervention.
- Capillary bleeding: Capillary bleeding usually occurs in superficial wounds, such as abrasions. The colour of the blood may vary somewhat (distal portion of circulation with oxygenated and unoxygenated blood mixing), and will generally ooze in small amounts, as opposed to flowing or spurting.
Read more about this topic: Emergency Bleeding Control
Famous quotes containing the words blood, vessels and/or affected:
“They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 12:7.
“So near along life’s stream are the fountains of innocence and youth making fertile its sandy margin; and the voyageur will do well to replenish his vessels often at these uncontaminated sources.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Friendship is by its very nature freer of deceit than any other relationship we can know because it is the bond least affected by striving for power, physical pleasure, or material profit, most liberated from any oath of duty or of constancy.”
—Francine Du Plesssix Gray (20th century)