​​How do people sometimes survive from a gunshot?

There are different kinds of damage with different types of bullets used. The type of bullet can also make a difference. If it is narrow & maintains its shape when it hits the body, it may be able to pass right through tissue without causing much secondary damage. However, if it’s built to explode on contact, more tissue injury may occur. The way the bullet hits and enters the body is also important & has to do with the yaw, or side to side movement of the bullet as it enters the body. An analogy is a football thrown in a tight spiral, there is less resistance as it passes through the air than if it is moving side to side or wobbling. The more the wobble, the greater the potential to transfer energy to the body & cause damage. The combination of velocity & bullet dynamics and the location in the body where the bullet enters will determine how much damage occurs. Gunshot wounds can be classified as low or high velocity, depending upon the type of firearm used. The cutoff is a speed of 2,000 feet per second. As a general rule, most handguns are low velocity, & hunting & military weapons are high velocity. A bullet will damage flesh and organs. Damage to the body from a bullet is caused in two ways. The first type of injury is caused by the direct blow or crush of the bullet. Whatever gets in its way is damaged, and this bullet track causes a permanent cavity. If the bullet yaws, the energy transfer increases, & the cavity becomes larger. The second injury type is caused by the shock waves of the bullet. The tissue surrounding the bullet track becomes caught up in a temporary vacuum that can be as much as 40 times as large as the bullet itself. This tissue cavity gets stretched & deformed & then reforms itself numerous times, like ripples in the water, until the tissue cavity returns to normal position. With this type of injury, the higher the velocity of the bullet, the larger the cavity of tissue that is at risk for damage. Some people survive gunshot wounds that on the surface appear to be fatal, yet others die from gunshot wounds that appear relatively minor. Just like real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. When a bullet enters the body, its trajectory (where it goes) helps determine the severity of the injury. Some bullets can pass through the body with relatively little damage, while others enter the body & then ping pong around inside damaging whatever tissue or organs are in its way. If the bullet damages a major artery or the heart, death may occur almost instantaneously; however, some people are lucky and survive a gunshot wound if nothing critical is damaged. Gunshot wounds to the head are more difficult to predict. Think of the skull as a closed box that cradles the brain. There isn’t a lot of room for movement for the brain or swelling in the skull. If a bullet enters the head & bounces around, the permanent cavity (bullet track) may be large, but the damage from the temporary cavity that forms is even worse. There is no room for the brain to move and the shock waves often cause irreversible damage. For some lucky people, if the bullet velocity is high and there is no side to side movement (wobble) and it passes through non-critical parts of the brain, less damage occurs & survival is possible.