heyy idk if tumblr ate it or something but just in case i'm sending it again. say patient gets shot with an arrow somewhere in the non-fatal meat between heart and shoulder. they pull it out clean and stitch it up quickly. after some hours of rest, can patient ride a horse at a moderate pace? would that pop the stitches? worsen the wound? or just be terribly painful?
First, assume that everything fiction has told you about this situation is a lie. I'm always blown away by how accurate older movies and television are as compared to modern versions. I have no proof of this, but it seems like instead of subsequent shows hiring medical consultants, they kind of.... just copied older television and movies? But they didn't know what was important and what wasn't, leading to a game of telephone where injuries got milder and milder (because who wants their character to die, or need surgery) until we got to today.
NOTE: A key exception to this is (some) novels, or movies and television based on a novel where the author did the research or hired a consultant. I assume this is because authors have longer timelines on which to do research.
Back to the ask, the bow and arrow is a lethal weapon, and its wounds mirror gunshot wounds in a lot of ways. We have evidence that as early as the 1400s fighting arrows could pierce bone and go clear through the human body, including through the skull. Also assume that even if a group only uses bows to hunt and not for warfare, those arrows have to pierce the hides of some pretty large and thick animals. So assume this arrow went through the shoulder and scapula (the shoulder blade).
There is also no place in the shoulder (except the very outside- through the trapezius or deltoid muscle or if maybe it lodged in the ball of the humerus (probably the only place in the shoulder that could stop it, but then you'd be looking at bone infection, which isn't pretty)) that wouldn't be deadly, even if you didn't count infection.
The reason for the deadliness is that between the heart and shoulder, you still have lung. Lungs work because the diaphragm pulls them downward, making space in the chest cavity, which causes air to rush in through the nose and mouth. If there's a hole in the chest, air rushes in there instead, collapsing the lungs and killing the person. This is called a sucking chest wound.
Imagine if, in this demonstration, there was a hole in the side of the chamber- the lungs wouldn't be able to inflate properly.
As soon as you pulled that arrow out the lungs would start to deflate, which you could patch with sturdy tape and a firmly placed hand (on both entry and exit wound), but that ultimately would need surgery to adequately close.
Could the patient ride a horse in that condition? Probably not, unless that horse was the only way to an operating room and someone was sitting behind them keeping pressure on both entry and exit wounds to prevent air from entering and escaping.
