Character hit by motorcycle, Catalog the injures. Medical tropers!

Okay, so I have a character, relatively minor, that gets hit by a motorcycle. He manages to mostly get out of the way, but it goes over his left leg. How much damage would this do? The bike is most likely going under 30, 25 mph, maybe even less. Needs to be enough to keep it going forward without a rider.

The motorcycle is a modified Ducati, or something similar.

As of now he's knocked back, obviously with a broken leg/ ankle, and after screaming in pain for a moment, passes out. He'd sustained multiple untreated injuries in the 48 hours proceeding this. What's the likely hood of going into shock? What other things would i need to be aware of to write this accurately? What would be makeshift first aid from bystanders?

I'm by no means an expert but let's give this a try.

What type of equipment would the rider have on? Assuming it is full gear then I would suggest head and neck trauma would certainly be on the cards despite the helmet, not a break certainly but whiplash, maybe a sprain depending on how he landed and point of impact. Contusion on where his body initially hit the ground, if a limb then a break wouldn't be out of the question. Shock on the other hand, an incident like that might have to be more serious but someone more of an expert than I might know better.

As for initial civilian response having witnessed several incidents not as severe thank goodness I have found that they would reassure the victim and keep them calm. They tend to leave any medical attention to the experts, moving the victim could cause further damage. In the middle of the road? As I said thankfully I hadn't seen this myself, they might take the risk or try and wave off traffic while the victim waits for medical attention. It's hard to say but I would lean towards the latter.

The Character isn't the rider he's basically on the sidewalk and someone else is using car-fu against him. He manages to get most of his body out of the way, but as he's stepping back it reaches him and his lower leg is still in it's path.

The scenario you've looked at will come in handy, Thank you for taking a stab at it!!! (pun not intended....)

Ah, beg pardon. Right well having another read of it the weight of a Ducatti bike would clearly cause a break. Depending on how Bad Ass your character is I'm not sure if passing out from the pain would be applicable. I had my ankle broken, now folks I'm not Mike Tyson, I'm not Randy The Natural Couture, but as bad as it was I managed to get up and walk home and only discovered after insistence to seek medical attention that it was a break. A break and a bad sprain are similar really, of course a break is worse but you get some idea if you had a bad sprain.

As for the fall itself you said about you said about other injuries this person sustained. Any detail on these? If he landed on a wrist for example that would clearly not be good, but if it were hurt before then it would cause further damage. If he landed on his head somehow then going by the speed and force I would suggest contusion, headaches, migraine, if I were a medical expert then I would suggest he be checked for a concussion but the human head is not as fragile as some may think. You don't want to step into a UFC ring which I'll illustrate below but it's not that fragile.

If you've watched any type of contact sport you'll see that fighters can take dozen of blows to the head, but one hit and it doesn't have to be full force, it can be a glancing blow from a kick or a comparatively weak punch and they are knocked out. My understanding is there are sort of pressure points or spots where if you are hit in a particular spot in a particular way (I probably shouldn't be saying this but a good shot to the side, between the teeth, if it can connect with the jaw, so I'm told) it's lights out.

Public reaction would be similar, being a premeditated attack there would be more shock. I highly doubt someone would go after the assailant but see what I said before. There would be several, at least, people tending to the person, more would show concern but most likely continue on their way if they see there are others helping out. They don't want to crowd the victim, that might be something to address. I think common medical knowledge is prevalent enough that people would know not to move the victim. Witnesses, there would certainly be people there who would talk to the police and side with the victim, you see this if there was an accident or bingle. Such an assault they would be more reluctant to become involved, if you want to keep it real then that would be something to write about.

It's a totally understandable confusion No worries.

This is really good stuff! Lots of useful insights, thank you!

So the injuries he sustained before are—falling from a decent height and dislocating (i think) his arm, evading the bad guys for about 48 hours through a forest without shoes on, so his feet are bloody. Before that he had been tortured by the villains (waterboarding—i think—specifically). The way i'm thinking of it, the bike going over his leg is the last straw and his reserves have run out and his body just says "screw this i'm outta here!" Which might be overplaying or underplaying his reaction, i'm not sure, hence the thread

I suppose the best way to answer your question would be how much you want to play up his Made of Iron status. If we're talking Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the one hand then by rights they would not break after such an ordeal. They make Gina Carano or Ali's daughter look about as threatening as a flock of geese, Michelle Rodreguiz couldn't play a character that tough, Jennifer Hale couldn't voice a woman that powerful. Were we talking 24 on the other hand then Jack Bauer is just one guy, nothing extraordinary about him. He is incredibly Bad Ass and tough...mental toughness as well as physical might be worth addressing, but he is not Arnold Shwarzenegger, he is not Sylvester Stallone, he is in many ways the same as you or me, just one difference. He. Will. Not. Give. Up. Ever. Now that's not to say normal people would check out after such an ordeal, but the question is how much do you want to play up his toughness? When do you want to bring reality and realism in? That's one of the reasons why we have Acceptable Breaks from Reality, for another comparison look at Die Hard, look at John Mc Clane. He is tough, but he gets beat up, shot, walks across broken glass and at the end is limping. A normal person would probably fall over at this point but the great thing about most characters, certainly most main characters is they are anything but ordinary.

The TL:DR version is basically to look at the characters who are mocked or addressed for their toughness, for their Made of Iron status and see whether or not they fit the story or the character you have in mind. They may have that much toughness despite being a five foot ten average joe and not a six foot four bodybuilder, they may not. That's really up to you as a writer to gauge how you want to tell the story and portray the character.

Okay, so if the character is minor is and this is played for horror, does the scenario as it stands work?

Also,if the wheel, specifically, goes over his lower leg (right around the ankle) would he have a compound fracture? I'm trying to visualize the injury so i can describe it.

Again it's up to you as a writer to choose how it would play out. I would say it works. If you were going for something like showing this would be too much for a normal character but not the main character then I say go for it.

When I did my ankle in it was simply from a misstep on uneven ground. I could hear and feel the crunch and the medical diagnosis from memory it was similar to a fracture, a Ducatti going over it with it's full weight I would picture could do a lot more damage, but simply based on experience you would get a fracture. For me the hospital thought it would have to go in a cast but I was able to keep it in one of those medical boots for a month, it can reinjure, had a bad sprain at the beginning of the year and as I said before it was very similar but thankfully not as bad, no break. Depending on how you want to play the character you could look at ongoing medical problems. I can certainly do what I did before breaking it, but it can hurt, it can reinjure more easily, but short answer is you would possibly get a fracture in such an instance. The same as the UFC example I said before, a blow from one punch or kick might not do anything but the same attack in the same place would do it. If you want details of the break or fracture then I could provide that as well.

A compound fracture is likelier than a simple one, yes. As for if he passes out in the first place, I would say a blow to the head or considerable bleeding would be more believable, but I've known people to pass out in less trying circumstances, so it really just depends on you.

I came off a motorcycle at around 30mph, impacted the ground with knees, chin (thankfully protected from abrasion by my helmet but I did take the brunt on my neck), chest and wrists, slid along the road - split the skin on my thigh, abraded knees, broke my wrist.

Got on the bike, rode it 9 miles to my destination (despite compensating for wildly bent handlebars), had a coffee and a cigarette and then tried to pick up a piece of paper between thumb and forefingers and screamed in pain due to my broken wrist, which hadn't registered up to this point.

Another time, I got my motorcycle safely off the road away from other motorists and stood around for a couple of minutes before folding over and collapsing due to the pain of hitting my testicles on the speedometer while going over the handlebars.

The point being, immediately after the accident, you can be oblivious to pain for a while until your body's had time to calm down a little and then you get suddenly hit by it.

Your character may well function a bit - enough to clear the immediate area - limp away despite the broken leg (and aggravate the damage), then hit the deck again when the damage "catches up with him".

That's right. I'm guessing most of us would have had a bad sprain at some point, and I'd suggest most of us would have initially walked through it at first. Come the next day you can barely walk. Now take a break or fracture into the equation, in my experience the initial pain was unbearable but I eventually was able to get up and walk in great pain, but then it got worse and it was constantly there, painkillers only dulled it a little, it took weeks before I was confident enough to be able to get up and do the things I normally would do.