How Long Does It Take To Bleed Out?

How long does it take to bleed out if an artery is cut?

Femoral Artery

"It depends on how the artery is cut...if it is cut clean and straight across then you have plenty of time to get help because arteries and veins are sphinctoral muscles or circular muscles that are designed to contract and close off the cut but if the cut is at an angle then they can not close off and the bleeding will not stop with out additional treatment. you can lose consciousness in about 30 seconds for the average adult male and death in about 3 minutes if the bleeding is unrestricted."

Brachial Artery

"the brachial artery pumps out 30 liters of blood a minute. the human body only has 5 liters. you'll bleed to death in less than 15 seconds." - Answers.com

How long does it take to bleed out, generally speaking?

Stomach Wounds

'Just writing a story, and a character gets stabbed in the right kidney followed by the stomach (organ, not the area).'

"Being stabbed in the stomach is incredible painful. both injuries you describe are survivable in the short term without medical treatment providing that the stab to the stomach severs no arteries - the kidneys when traumatized clamp down pretty hard thus even though nearly 1/6 to 1/8 of the hearts blood flow passes through a kidney every minute at rest (so 1/6 of 3-6 litres ie 500ml to 1L every minute depending on the size of the person), it is more difficult to bleed out through the kidney - although the knife could damage the abdominal aorta which cause unconsciousness in 30 secs max and death would follow very quickly. 

acid from the stomach spills into the would and the peritoneum causing massive pain - the person would quickly assume the fetal position." - Yahoo Answers

"Generally speaking, a puncture wound to the stomach can kill within about fifteen minutes unless you're right next to a trauma center, and it is an extraordinarily painful way to die. Bear in mind that rattlesnake venom, and that of other species of viper, is composed of digestive enzymes like those found in your stomach." - Yahoo Answers

Liver Injury

"A liver injury is some form of trauma sustained to the liver. This can occur through either a blunt force such as a car accident, or a penetrating foreign object such as a knife.^[1] Liver injuries constitute 5% of all traumas, making it the most common abdominal injury.^[2] Generally nonoperative management and observation is all that is required for a full recovery." - Wikipedia

"Quite a long time, actually - the liver really doesn't have blood vessels until you get to the veins leading to the portal vein, so unless one of those is cut you would slowly ooze to death rather than bleed to death. If the cut wasn't too deep or severe, you could actually develop a good enough blood clot within the liver to staunch the bleeding and keep yourself from dying." - Answers.com

Basic Puncture Wounds

"We've all seen the movie where someone is stabbed in the stomach, or shot with an arrow, and they fall over dead, usually in seconds.
Particularly for the knife-belly wound - this doesn't seem right. As an older, overweight sofa dweller, I'm sure I'd be incapacitated, but I think it would take quite a while to bleed out.

Similarly with an arrow to the chest or back - barring a heart shot, I'd imagine that an average person would live quite a while (taking nothing from Boromir's epic last stand).

So - how long would it take to die (barring a major artery being hit)? Could the average person expect to not be total incapacitated from a single wound?"

"It depends entirely on what damage is done. There is no other possible answer.
An abdominal wound that cuts through a kidney can cause unconsciousness within a second, death in less than a minute. A wound that only damages an empty stomach can heal completely with no medical treatment at all. A chest wound that severs one of the major veins supplying the heart is going to be real nasty. A wound that leaves an open channel to the thoracic cavity can cause both lungs to collapse within a minute and death within 5 minutes.

An important point to realise is that "falls over and dies" is not the same as "falls over dead". Kidney damage, for example, can cause near-instantaneous unconsciousness because its screws up blood pressure control. A blow to the diaphragm can cause a person to drop immediately due to breathing difficulties. It may take an hour to die from such wounds, but the person will fall over immediately and never regain consciousness. From a movie perspective the difference between "falls over dead" and "falls over and dies" is non-existent.

Incapacitated is such a vague term that the second question is almost impossible to answer.If you get stabbed in the abdomen and suffer more than superficial muscle/skin damage you will be almost certainly be doubled over in pain and have difficulty breathing. In that sense you will be incapacitated. Even though fully conscious and able to speak, tend to your own wounds and so forth. You won't be running around much. If you've ever been struck hard enough to have the wind knocked out of you, you know the type of sensation that a stab wound to the stomach is going to cause." - Straight Dope Forums