Bat or knife - greatest chance of fatality during an attack

Chris Parker said:
These are the ones I'm referring to (http://www.dlsports.com/knife_dangers.html). For the record, the first time I saw them was when a friend of mine, and a fellow senior, who is a cardiac surgeon, sent them around to us, which included the stories for the injuries, and the fact that, despite the appearances, these injuries were really superficial, rather than genuinely life-threatening. Still damn scary, but this is the difference between slashing attacks and stabbing ones.
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Yup, those're the ones.
 
"Bat or knife?" ...I ran this question past a friend of mine who is into Western historical weaponry. His answer, "Why chose? Combine them both. It's called a broadsword!" LOL.

But seriously, granted enough space to move around freely I'd favor the bat, simply for the reach advantage. If you let the knife wielder get inside, you are done for.
 
Chris Parker said:
Right. Being the person who made the claim that a baseball bat attack is more potentially a lethal attack in the first place, I think it might be pertinent to explain what that was in reference to, as it wasn't to the amount of damage that each weapon could potentially cause. It was more to do with the more commonly encountered tactics that you might come up against.

When it comes to a knife, the most common usage is to threaten/intimidate, commonly in order to extort compliance or money out of someone. The next is a "defensive offence", in which the knife is used to create a barrier by slashing back and forth. The idea is that the person doesn't really want to do much damage, or kill you, but is using the knife to maintain a sense of power. Finally you have the dedicated attempt on your life, which is far more commonly a stabbing action than a slashing one. While common in prisons (where a lot of people seem to get their ideas on knife combat/assault from), it's not as common as a "street" assault, to the point where it makes up the minority of knife attacks.

With a baseball bat, it again can be used to intimidate, either by showing it and waving it around, or by hitting other objects (think road rage incidents, where the car becomes the "victim" of the attack). Once it becomes a case of actually attacking the other person, whether it's the "defensively offensive" actions, or an actually intended lethal assault, the common targeting is the same: the head. That's due to a range of reasons, including the psychological aspects of attacking the "face" (which represents the person, psychologically speaking), as well as it being perceived (accurately) as a powerful action. In other words, as soon as the baseball bat-attacker moves past intimidating, the most common attack is going to be potentially lethal, whereas with a knife it might not be.

So the reasoning behind saying that a baseball bat attack is more likely to be potentially a lethal attack is based on the type of attack more prevalent with a baseball bat, not on the amount of damage that could be done, or the type of attack that could be made.



The thing is that aiming at the head is the more common method for a baseball bat, not the arms. And as for the effects of the slashes, as seen in the well-worn photos, well... they didn't die. Most of those wounds are nasty looking, but realistically superficial. A baseball bat to the skull is not really such a superficial injury.
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Hi Chris, thanks for clarifying. My experience of knife and bat (type) attacks is very different to your own and at least explains our different perspectives. I've been up close and personal to both types of attack for real (witnessing them first hand) and whilst I have no idea whether the victims of the attacks survived (i suspect that they did) I can say that almost all of the knife attacks that I've seen have been a an intial slashing followed by repeated stabbing very much like the shank attacks seen the clips. The bat type attacks that have been successful have almost all resulted in a floored opponent in the foetal position arms covering their head being pounded about the arms and body. I've seen far more bat attacks fail than I have knife attacks. In my own view bats are far easier to defend against than knives and are decidely easier to spot ahead of time, although I would prefer not to face either.
 
WingChunIan said:
In my own view bats ...are decidely easier to spot ahead of time.
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Yep. That bat is pretty hard to hide in your waistband or behind your palm! I suppose you could try and hide it in your pants, but you'd sure walk like you had a stick up your... oh nevermind! :uhyeah:
 
WingChunIan said:
Which do folks feel is more likely to result in fatal injury, a knife attack or an attack with a bat?
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Like others have said, there are a lot of other variables involved, because both weapons can result in fatal injury. But, imho, I'd have to go with the knife because well, it's easier to pierce vital organs with a knife. Plus you can cut vital arteries with knives. With a bat, there are only 2 ways I can think of where you can kill somebody.

1. Blunt trauma to the head
2. Use it as a garrote to choke the life out of them (but this is even pushing my imagination)

Where as a knife can stab at the liver, kidneys, and possibly penetrate the heart if it's over 7 inches in length. Not to mention slice the carotid arteries, femoral arteries, etc... you get my point.
 
StreetReady said:
Like others have said, there are a lot of other variables involved, because both weapons can result in fatal injury. But, imho, I'd have to go with the knife because well, it's easier to pierce vital organs with a knife. Plus you can cut vital arteries with knives. With a bat, there are only 2 ways I can think of where you can kill somebody.

1. Blunt trauma to the head
2. Use it as a garrote to choke the life out of them (but this is even pushing my imagination)

Where as a knife can stab at the liver, kidneys, and possibly penetrate the heart if it's over 7 inches in length. Not to mention slice the carotid arteries, femoral arteries, etc... you get my point.
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I normally stay out of these threads, but this is becoming ridiculous.

Potentially lethal strikes with a bat:
Head, neck, throat, ribs, clavicles, liver, spleen, gut, bladder, pelvis, upper arm, upper leg. If you can only think of two, you're just not trying very hard.

You do NOT need a blade "over 7 inches in length" to reach the heart, unless your target is HUGELY obese. A 2" blade, inserted just to the left of the sternum at the 4th or 5th intercostal space, is PLENTY long enough to reach the heart.

While it's true that blades are more lethal than bats (in my 30 years of experience in a busy trauma center, at least), it's not because of arteries being sliced. Stab wounds are far more lethal, and the most common lethal stab wounds are to the abdomen, where they puncture the aorta, the liver, the spleen, the renal arteries, the diaphragm... The idea that you're going to slice someones femoral artery in a fight is fairly silly. The idea that you're going to slash someones carotid in a fight is similarly silly.

Not quite as silly as Zenjael claiming he could escape from a rear naked choke by biting through the brachial artery, but pretty damned silly.

Chris, I've seen those pictures. Honestly, two of the three look unlikely to even spend the night in the hospital. Stitch them up and let them go. The cut just below the ribs would need a CT to make sure it didn't penetrate the abdominal cavity. If it did, then it's off to the OR to explore. If not, it's stiches and home. A chest xray for the other two, a few stitches, and off they go.
 
Dirty Dog said:
I normally stay out of these threads, but this is becoming ridiculous.

Potentially lethal strikes with a bat:
Head, neck, throat, ribs, clavicles, liver, spleen, gut, bladder, pelvis, upper arm, upper leg. If you can only think of two, you're just not trying very hard.

You do NOT need a blade "over 7 inches in length" to reach the heart, unless your target is HUGELY obese. A 2" blade, inserted just to the left of the sternum at the 4th or 5th intercostal space, is PLENTY long enough to reach the heart.

While it's true that blades are more lethal than bats (in my 30 years of experience in a busy trauma center, at least), it's not because of arteries being sliced. Stab wounds are far more lethal, and the most common lethal stab wounds are to the abdomen, where they puncture the aorta, the liver, the spleen, the renal arteries, the diaphragm... The idea that you're going to slice someones femoral artery in a fight is fairly silly. The idea that you're going to slash someones carotid in a fight is similarly silly.
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Silly ideas, but not impossible right? Thanks for the insight, I'd never imagine getting hit in the upper arm or upper leg with a bat would be potentially lethal. Why didn't they teach me that in the military? guess it must be too deadly and effective for warfare. Can you explain why it would be lethal? And how would you hit somebody in the throat with a bat? Would you thrust it forward towards their throat with the handle end? or would you swing it at their throat like you're playing baseball?

Sounds like you have to be pretty precise shot in order to hit the heart with a 2in blade. Which is highly likely to happen during a fight. I'm sure the person being attacked might even draw a map for the knife attacker and write 'insert knife here' on their chest.

i can see the femoral artery slashing being silly, but carotid doesn't sound too far fetched, it's right there on the side of the neck. a diagonal downward slash with a sharp knife would do the trick. they teach this to U.S. Marines.

I'm not questioning your experience from working in a trauma center. I'm sure you've seen some nasty things, but dying from a baseball bat strike to the leg sounds silly.
 
StreetReady said:
Silly ideas, but not impossible right?
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Not impossible, no. I think you'd have as much luck skiing through a revolving door though.

StreetReady said:
Thanks for the insight, I'd never imagine getting hit in the upper arm or upper leg with a bat would be potentially lethal. Why didn't they teach me that in the military? guess it must be too deadly and effective for warfare. Can you explain why it would be lethal?
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Bone fragments. Axilary or femoral artery. Both of which, incidentially, are closer to those bone fragments than your knife blade.

StreetReady said:
And how would you hit somebody in the throat with a bat? Would you thrust it forward towards their throat with the handle end? or would you swing it at their throat like you're playing baseball?
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Either way would work. Personally, I'd be more inclined to thrust. The tracheal rings can't really take too much impact. The baseball swing would be more ideal for a strike to the cervical spine or (even better) the base of the skull.

StreetReady said:
Sounds like you have to be pretty precise shot in order to hit the heart with a 2in blade. Which is highly likely to happen during a fight. I'm sure the person being attacked might even draw a map for the knife attacker and write 'insert knife here' on their chest.
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I've seen far more people die from stab wounds that penetrated the heart than I have from slashes to the neck or groin. Or baseball bats, for that matter.
Like, for example, the kid I saw about a year ago. He and his mother were fighting over a pack of cigarettes (they were both well known to the police for substance abuse issues). She stabbed him with a paring knife (about a 3" blade). She missed the point I described, since she stabbed him to the right of the sternum, but still managed to put the knife through both the front AND back walls of the right ventricle. I know this, because when we cracked his chest we were able to staple the hole in the front wall, but couldn't get to the one in the rear. We did manage to get a pulse back, though, as long as I kept my finger in the hole in the back wall. That made for an...interesting...trip to the OR. He didn't make it, despite all that.

StreetReady said:
i can see the femoral artery slashing being silly, but carotid doesn't sound too far fetched, it's right there on the side of the neck. a diagonal downward slash with a sharp knife would do the trick. they teach this to U.S. Marines.
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It is indeed. And pretty deep (farther from the surface than the heart, by a long way). I've seen people with their throat cut in exactly the manner taught by the US military. In at least one case, it was done by a member of the US miltary. The carotid was intact in all the cases I've seen, including the one that had his trachea laid open (which made intubating him very easy...). Slashing the throat is most likely to cut the external jugular, and while this may eventually be fatal, it's certainly not going to be terribly fast.

StreetReady said:
I'm not questioning your experience from working in a trauma center. I'm sure you've seen some nasty things, but dying from a baseball bat strike to the leg sounds silly.
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Guess you've never seen a retroperitoneal hematoma caused by a hip or pelvic fracture. Nor anybody with a proximal femur fracture that damaged any of the very large vessles in the area. Yes, the femur is strong. And yes, it can be broken with a baseball bat.

Of course, the vast majority of the time, attacks with a bat result in a CT or plain xrays, some stitches, an ice pack, maybe a tetanus shot, and a trip home.
 
Forgetting everything else -- the simplest way a baseball bat to the leg, especially, could be lethal is a blood clot. Might not be immediate -- but you might find the Year & a Day rule of interest.
 
StreetReady said:
if a baseball bat to the leg is lethal, i don't see why this is impossible.
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The next time I see someone with a liter of blood in their thigh from a femur fracture, I'll tell them not to worry, they're not going to die, or even need a transfusion. After all, you said it's not possible.
 
jks9199 said:
Forgetting everything else -- the simplest way a baseball bat to the leg, especially, could be lethal is a blood clot. Might not be immediate -- but you might find the Year & a Day rule of interest.
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More likely a fat embolus, actually.

The mortality within a year of femur fractures runs something like 25-30%.
 
Dirty Dog said:
The next time I see someone with a liter of blood in their thigh from a femur fracture, I'll tell them not to worry, they're not going to die, or even need a transfusion. After all, you said it's not possible.
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Don't forget to also tell the next person you see with a slashed throat that he's lucky his attacker didn't decide break his legs with a baseball bat. After all, a slashed carotid isn't at all life threatening like you said.
 
StreetReady said:
Don't forget to also tell the next person you see with a slashed throat that he's lucky his attacker didn't decide break his legs with a baseball bat. After all, a slashed carotid isn't at all life threatening like you said.
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Dont forget to also tell the next person You see with a broken skull that Hes lucky His attacker didnt slash His arms.
Seriously, both of them hurt. Both have upsides and downsides. Its like comparing a Revolver to a Handgun (Is that the right word?). The difference is that they do different kinds of damage.
 
Cyriacus said:
Dont forget to also tell the next person You see with a broken skull that Hes lucky His attacker didnt slash His arms.
Seriously, both of them hurt. Both have upsides and downsides. Its like comparing a Revolver to a Handgun (Is that the right word?). The difference is that they do different kinds of damage.
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a revolver is a type of handgun.
 
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