Sooooo, getting shot in the thigh.. how serious is it? how bad is it going to be? how long will the hospital stay/complete recovery be? hope you can help out!
Tbh getting shot in the thigh isn't that bad. At least not compared to getting shot a lot of other places whumpees tend to get shot, like the shoulder or abdomen.
But it pays to understand what's going on in there.
There are two big important structures in the thigh that could cause permanent injury. These are the femur, (the thigh bone), and the femoral artery (a really big artery that can cause a LOT of blood loss).
Bullets do a lot of damage, and if they hit the femur, they can break it. A bullet to the femur can also cause shards of bone and bullet to shatter into the tissue surrounding the break. This takes some pretty extensive surgery to correct.
If the bullet (or a fragment of bullet or bone) hits the femoral artery, the main life threat is bleeding. This can be stopped with direct pressure (which may involve packing the wound with gauze, bandages, or whatever else is available and kneeling on the wound) or a tourniquet if direct pressure is not enough. A tourniquet may also be required if the rescuer has to attend to other issues and can't focus exclusively on putting pressure on the wound. If this happens, surgery is required to fix the blood vessel. If no surgery is provided, the leg will die from not being supplied with blood.
The nice thing is that the thigh has a lot of places where it can be shot and not be life threatening, though. Either of the above scenarios requires a bullet to go through the center of the thigh. Any other spot on the thigh is going to go through muscle or fat, which while painful is not going to be life threatening.
Fat will usually heal without surgery. Muscle injuries from bullets may require surgery if there is significant damage to blood vessels or something called compartment syndrome develops. Compartment syndrome occurs within a day or two of the injury, when the injured limb swells so much that internal pressure inside the limb overcomes the blood pressure, cutting off blood flow. This too can cause death of the limb from lack of blood supply, and is corrected by surgically cutting open the limb and allowing the compartment to decompress.
As far as how long the hospital stay is: if the GSW is minor and only goes through fat, the patient might be discharged right from the emergency room, with a full recovery expected in a few weeks.
If it goes into muscle, they might be in observation for 24 hours. If compartment syndrome developed during this time, they'd be taken to surgery and the limb cut open. The wound would be left open while the swelling goes down, usually with either retention sutures (large, usually plastic beads that hold sutures in place but give space for them to stretch) or just packed with gauze. Since the wound is open, the patient would stay for how ever long it took for the swelling to go down, and go back to surgery to have the whole thing surgically repaired.
If they need surgery to correct a broken femur, they may splint the leg in the emergency department and admit the patient to be hospitalized until the surgery can be done (usually the next day). After the surgery they'd stay 2-4 days to recover, control pain, get IV antibiotics, and get evaluated by physical therapy. Once they got home, they'd need physical therapy for several months or longer, with full recovery taking 6 months to a year or more.
If they need surgery to correct just a torn femoral artery, they'd have an emergency surgery so the tourniquet could be taken off as soon as possible (ideally within 12 hours). They would also stay 2-4 days, but likely not have the same extensive physical therapy requirement, and would probably be relatively close to healed in a month or so.
All of the above assumes an otherwise young, healthy person motivated to get out of the hospital. I have seen people stay in the hospital much longer for these things due to pain control, physical therapy needs, or (most commonly) a lack of support at home making it necessary that they go to a facility their insurance doesn't cover, requiring a long back-and-forth to convince whatever facility that yes, they actually don't have another option.
