Is blood alcohol level effected by massive traumatic blood loss?

Question

Specifically, person suffers traumatic amputation in accident. Loses lots of blood. Had a few drinks just before the accident. Arrives at trauma and has blood draw one hour post accident. BAC .17. As alcohol processed in the body, would the loss of blood cause the test results to be higher than if he had not lost blood?

Also, where person has been drinking and is cut open and bleeds a lot, does the blood smell like alcohol?

Answer 1

Yes.  If a person still had non-digested alcohol in the stomach at the time of the blood loss, the alcohol would accumulate into a reduced blood volume as it passed through the small intestine and into the blood stream.  

The blood probably does not smell like alcohol.  Even if it reached 0.2-0.3% it would be unlikely that you would be able to smell it.  Any higher than that and the person would be dead.

Answer 2

no -the person still has the same percentage of alcohol in the blood regardless of the amount of blood in the body.

Answer 3

BAC is a proportion...meaning that if u bleed it out (lol, like that song :P) then there is less total alchohol in u, but every individual unit/sample of blood will still be the same ratio of blood to alchohol.

im not sure tis applies if they start bleeding rapidly just as they start to drink (but i dont see where that would apply unless u went and slashed a guy just as he took a series of shots)

not sure bout the smell...but i would guess that if u drank enough alchohol it would smell like it. not sure if its possible for a human to drink that much alcohol though (not without dying that is)

Answer 4

Serum alcohol concentration is independent of total blood volume.