In the column "How Scared Should I Be?" VICE staff writer and generalized anxiety disorder sufferer Mike Pearl seeks to quantify the scariness of everything under the sun. We hope it'll help you to more wisely allocate that most precious of natural resources: your fear.When I write something that pisses a lot of people off (usually something about video games), a handful of people will point out that I have a punchable face. They're right. In photos, including the one at the top of this post, I look smug, judgmental, professorial, weak, and just generally like I have what Germans call "Backpfeifengesicht" or "Ted Cruz Disease."
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But despite my birth defect, my punchable face has avoided contact with fists for all of my 31 years of life. And as a fearful person, I don't let myself get complacent, despite my impressive un-punched streak. Instead, I back down easily when confronted, and I strenuously avoid people who look like they might be throwing fists around indiscriminately. I realize that's no way to live my life, and I've known for a few years that I should probably confront my fear.But just this week, I happened upon a news story about a guy who had once killed a man with a single punch. Given that just one well-placed knuckle sandwich can end it all, does it make sense for me to keep doing everything I can to avoid fisticuffs completely?Maybe I should, according to Dr. Darragh O'Carroll, an emergency room doctor in Los Angeles, and part-time ringside physician at MMA fights. If I got punched in the face, he said, "the odds are probably that nothing serious is going to happen, but it's still possible."My likelihood of getting punched is a bit of a mystery. I couldn't find good data on face punching, and the only crime stats I could find were on aggravated assault.Self-reporting on fights makes them seem much likelier. No one seems to ask adults, but in 2013, the Child Trends Data Bank asked high school students if they'd been in a fight in the past year. And 24.7 percent said they had. And in a very unscientific poll, I asked ten people at the VICE office if they'd been punched in the face, and 100 percent said they had at least once. The point, in O'Carroll's opinion, is that I can't hide from getting punched forever. "At some point, there's a high likelihood," he said, laughing.
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But what are the health risks of a punch to the face?When the inevitable happens, the most likely injury is a broken nose, in O'Carroll's opinion. Nose breaks can be simple fractures, or more complex breaks. Most, O'Carroll said, "will heal without any intervention." But he warned me about a potentially dangerous side effect of a broken nose called a septal hematoma. "If you stuck your finger in either nostril, you would feel—I would describe it as a big grape," he said, and that's something that would need emergency attention, or else my nasal septum could be destroyed due to lack of blood flow.Obviously one concern should be my teeth, which O'Carroll said are more likely to be knocked clean out than broken. But when it comes to punching teeth, punchers should be more scared than punchees, according to O'Carroll. "There's more bacteria in a human mouth than a dog's mouth, so if those teeth got into your knuckle, you would need to get that washed out in an operating room, because the bacteria can proliferate and destroy the joint," he said.I should be more concerned about getting punched in the jaw. "The mandible is half a ring, and rings like to break in two spots," O'Carroll explained. If my jaw only breaks in one spot, and it's non-displaced, he told me, I could get away with my jaw being wired shut, and drinking through a straw for 4 to 6 weeks. That's actually the better outcome when it comes to jaw fractures. O'Carroll said an open jaw fracture would be much worse. "That's when I look inside the mouth, and the fracture continues to where your gums and teeth have separated." Apart from the heavy-duty repairs involved, and the obvious risk of disfigurement (go ahead and google image search "open jaw fracture," I'll wait), there's also a risk of serious infection.
Broken Nose
Jaw and Teeth Injuries
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Brain Damage
Eye Injuries
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The Takeaway
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So I'll go back to being careful.
Final Verdict: How Scared Should I Be of Getting Punched in the Face?
3/5: Sweating it
Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.