If you die naturally, the blood remains in the blood vessels, but what exactly happens to it: does it clot (because normally blood needs oxygen to clot?) or does it remain liquid or does something else happen?
Answer
Hi Kimberley,
Blood not only needs oxygen to clot, but calcium and a whole host of other substances. Blood clots for 2 reasons, which we call the intrinsic and the extrinsic pathway. Either blood clots because a vascular wall ruptures and the platelets and the cells of the vascular wall activate each other, or because blood comes into contact with a foreign object (glass, plastic tubes…). Blood can also clot in the anterior chamber of the right heart with certain arrhythmias. Or people who move little (sitting for a long time, leg in plaster…) can make a clot in the leg (or elsewhere). In critically ill people, the blood also becomes very sick, causing it to clot all over the body. By using up the clotting factors and the platelets, one starts to bleed everywhere at the same time despite the generalized clotting.
Of course, when you die, your blood is no longer supplied with oxygen, making it dark. Blood consists of blood water (plasma) containing cells: those cells spin around the bollard along with the pumping blood flow. When the blood flow stops, the cells settle: a separation is formed between the cells and the plasma (blood water). Because the blood ‘walked’ in vessels, it sinks down according to gravity after death. These are the corpse marks (purple spots) that you see on the lowest parts of a dead person’s body.
D. Danschieter, MScN
Answered by
MSc Dirk Danschieter
Children’s intensive care – humanitarian disasters and field hospitals – plasticizers and plasticizers in medical equipment and the effect on the body
Avenue de la Plein 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
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