Depending on how the bullets hit, I'd guess there's one big incision from the surgery, and possibly some smaller ones from the two bullet holes they didn't go in by. I hope that makes sense. It would depend if they were close enough to pull out with the big tweezer things (not likely because of heart muscle damage and sewing needed inside) or if they had to cut her open, I'm guessing that's the most likely.

If you have heart surgery, then chances are good you have that long, thick vertical scar from supersternal notch down to solar plexus that people get. (The only famous person I know of who has it is Skeet Ulrich, and I've never seen him shirt-free on film, so I can't give you a good visual to refer to.) They basically take a huge set of tongs and lever your ribcage apart to be able to see your heart and lungs, and then tape you back together with duct tape when they're done.

Maybe they've gone arthroscopic recently, although I suspect not, if it's 3 armor-piercing bullets they're fishing out.

I guess there'd also be the scars from the 3 bullet holes, or maybe the surgery scar overlaps one (or all) of them. Then funny (not) part would be what the bullets look like -- you know how normal bullets look like squashed grapes after they hit Kevlar? I imagine armor-piercing bullets do deform as they pass through the Kevlar, which deformation might cause more damage than an ordinary bullet would make if she hadn't been wearing the vest.

For some reason, though, I want to say that the bullets came down from above, right? (This is Howard we're talking about, right?) So they could have passed through her neck and shoulders to get into the chest cavity, without hitting the Kevlar. In which case, they'd still open up her chest to fix the cut-up parts, but they'd be fishing the bullets out of her ovaries. I don't remember exactly what the angles of the crime scene were, just that all 3 of them ended up in the hospital, and there was a stuffed giraffe involved.

Disclaimer: only watches surgery channel sometimes, not actually a heart surgeon.

I don't remember.(must watch "City That Bleeds" again. Which I vaguely dread. Though it's the next one with "They messed up my shoes, Gee." that made me fucking gelatinous, twice, and not the foamy kind... the weepy ugly kind) Thanks all for your interesting and slightly disturbing bullet knowledge. Nutty, if this was going out with my name on it, you bet I'd call a surgeon, pick his brain. But not for fan fic, probably.(/"it's only fan fic.")And I'm so stealing that duct-tape description...well, borrowing. I'll give you credit, but that would be so Kay, to come right out and say that. "Not bad for a broad held together with duct tape, huh?" or something like that.

There used to be a Yahoo list peopled by nurses and the occasional insomniac resident which existed for the express purpose of discussing plausible injuries/illnesses to be applied to fanfic characters. Someone would come on, once or twice a day, and say,

I want to have [Hurt-ee] have his legs broken badly enough that he can't walk out of [desert, snowy woods, other isolated place] but not badly enough that he can't have sex with [Comfort-er]. What do you recommend?

It was really a sadist's paradise, with the ensuing serious discussion of "Well, maybe not break his legs, but you could give him a torn achilles tendon! Dude, he could have frostbite in all his toes! Double points for a good reason to bunk together!" And so on and forth. Good times.

I could so badly use a list like that now for a situation in my original fiction.....

Is it wrong that that makes me laugh? I think so, and yet...bwah!

I want to have [Hurt-ee] have his legs broken badly enough that he can't walk out of [desert, snowy woods, other isolated place] but not badly enough that he can't have sex with [Comfort-er]. What do you recommend?

And this is so damn close to my actual question it's not even funny. Seven original plots in the world, huh?

Well, as long as you're not writing original fiction about gay mounties, I think you're safe.

The answer to your question, Susan, is don't have Hurt-ee break his/her legs. (Fanficcers always go with the most drastic, life-threatening possibility, and double-points for its involving both blood and vomit.) Surely there's a nice sprain or something to be had that doesn't involve sedatives and plaster-of-paris.

Oh, I hadn't even considered broken legs--my tentative idea was musket ball or pistol shot to the thigh, only a flesh wound, but made worse than it needs to be when Injuree and Comforter decide to go ahead and dig it out (I think they could've safely left it in, since it seems 19th century soldiers often carried around stray bits of ammunition in their old wounds that would occasionally ache or work their way out, but my characters don't know anything about medicine and would just guess), and the wound gets infected. I'm just not sure that's a severe enough wound for my purposes, or OTOH that if it was badly infected enough to keep him laid up, that Injuree could avoid gangrene or similar permanently damaging ickiness. Because he can't be permanently damaged until much later in the plot, when I need a way to get him out of the army.

Okay, as long as people with compound fractures and/or flesh-eating bacteria aren't having gymnastic sex scenes, you get a pass from me.

I admit, I know very little about (a) what a person would do, medically, in 1810 and (b) what the result would be. There is a bit of (seemingly plausible) surgery on a bullet would in Master and Commander that you might consult, just to get a feel for how it works.

I can't think that all wound infections resulted in gangrene, death or permanent disability. We get over respiratory infections all the time. Surely there's a book on this sort of thing, but I don't know what it is.