The transcript below is from the video “Doctor Reacts to “Ip Man vs 10 Black Belts” Fight Injuries” by Dr Hope’s Sick Notes.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
Hello, welcome back to another rapid fight scene trauma diagnosis, where we break down the injuries from the best fight scenes in the business and you’ve guessed it, diagnose them. Today is the turn of Ip Man and his fight with 10 black belts.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s a biography of Ip Man, the Wing Chun martial arts grandmaster who famously went on to train Bruce Lee. And like all good fight scenes, it’s not just about the fight, it’s about the context. So, Ip Man finds his town of Foshan has been occupied by the empire of Japan and one of the Japanese generals organizes tournaments for any Chinese martial artist to claim food. Now, these aren’t some friendly affairs. In a previous scene, Ip Man’s friend is killed at one of the tournaments. So he goes there not only to fight but to avenge his death. And so to really stick it to them, he agrees not to fight just one or even three but ten Karate black belts three.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
3,2,1 Fight
This guy is thrown to the floor but actually, it’s less of a throw, more like a fall from gravity. So probably just some bruising. kick to the left face and jaw, possible facial bone fracture and traumatic brain injury – makes a hell of a sound though. These three guys take a blunt force trauma to the head – again, facial injury, if not a fracture then various soft tissue injuries like black eyes – what we call periorbital hematomas.
That is gonna sting. From the mechanism, we’d expect a left shoulder dislocation. It may even reduce itself as he brings his shoulder back round but given the extreme angle, we’re gonna see tears in the ligaments and muscles around the shoulder. Maybe even a fracture of the bones of the joint. Certainly going to need an orthopedic review on this chap.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
Talking of an orthopedic review, we see either a traumatic left hip dislocation or neck of femur fracture – both possible from what we see here. Essentially, the femur, the thigh bone and the pelvis, the hip bone are no longer in articulation and during that rather nasty looking injury, we also saw a blunt force trauma to the cardiac box. So at best making you winded from spasm of the diaphragm or at worst, it may fracture the sternum or ribs and cause underlying bruising to the heart or lungs.
Blunt force trauma to the back in the region of around about T1, T2, he’d be unlucky to do much damage here but the dude appears to be knocked out. So we may be looking at fractures of the spinous process. So the bit that sticks out from the vertebra, that’s not going to damage the spinal cord, it might just keep him down due to the pain, or maybe even a rib fracture, or maybe he knows what he’s up against and he’s just justifiably feigning an injury.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
Right upper quadrant blunt force trauma from that kick. The so-called liver shot is gonna stretch that liver capsule, stimulate your vagus nerve and make you unsteady on your feet. In its extremes, can also cause a laceration of the liver, followed by a left collar bone strike. So possible clavicle fracture. Then, we see the Wing Chun chain punch which blows to the abdomen, chest and head, bruising, rib fractures, facial fractures and traumatic brain injury.
You’d think at this point, the others might concede but oh no. Elbow strike to the left side of the face, a lot of force here. So possible zygomaxillary complex fracture and then knee to the face – definite nasal fracture. Plus, that’s not an insignificant head injury. So possible concussion. So a mild traumatic brain injury. Then this dude finally gets an acute whiplash injury in the form of a rotational injury to the neck. I’m not quite sure if he spins out of a natural reflex in order to prevent injury. I think that’s what’s happened. But if the neck has been rotated quickly and beyond its range of motion, we could be looking at a fracture of the cervical spine. In which case, we’d need to immobilize him at the scene to protect that spinal cord. So, we’d have him in a collar, blocks, on a spinal board and we’d have a CT scan to look for that fracture.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
Quite literally, kick a man when he’s down, we have a blunt force trauma to the lumbar spine around about L3. Again, possible vertical fracture and where the nerve roots come out here, if they’re damaged, we could see lots of sensation to the thigh and weakness in the hip flexion and knee extension and then an elbow to the posterior thorax. It takes a lot of force to break your scapula but that might be what we’re looking at.
We then see again various head injuries. So as we said before, facial hematomas, fractures, maybe some lost teeth and traumatic brain injuries. The strike we see on the side of the head here, so just above the ear, we often see that in combat sports, resulting in unsteadiness as the impact is on or around the temporal bone which is where your vestibular system. So your balance system is housed. So it can temporarily, see what I did there, upset your balance.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
Okay, so this direct blow to the neck is of concern for a laryngeal fracture, which thankfully is rare given the relative flexibility and mobility of the cartilage in the neck but a direct blow like this from a train fighter could easily fracture it and this has the potential to kill you quickly from collapsing that airway or subsequent swelling or bleeding into the airway.
And then another chain punch – So multiple blunt force traumas in the region of the cardiac box. At least, there’s going to be significant bruising if maybe your eye were to punch them but a trained fighter would cause possibly a lot worse. So sternum fractures, rib fractures and then you’re at risk of underlying bruising. So contusions to the heart and lungs.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
And another liver shot then a right chest trauma like the rib fracture. Rib fractures on their own aren’t normally an issue, we just worry about the pump to the lung underneath.
We then see multiple blunt force traumas to the face causing a traumatic epistaxis, certain nosebleed but you’re gonna have fractures as well so one or more nasal fractures, zygomaxillary complex fractures or orbital blowout fractures, and then as always, got to think of a traumatic brain injury as well. So we could even have bruising on the brain, so a brain contusion.
Last and certainly least, Ip Man, he’s got a few abrasions on his knuckles and so on to the kill count, we have none in stable condition, 7 in serious condition, 3 in critical condition and none dead at sea.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
So, there you have it and just a couple things to add as we mentioned a few times on these breakdowns that anyone who’s got head injuries that makes them unconscious is also at risk of dying from occluding their own airways, so-called swallowing your tongue. So that would be a priority for the first people on the scene here. And another thing that adds to the realism in this scene is the injured people are still moving around. So they’re not just knocked out which you often see in fight scenes, they’re in severe pain from the fractures and other injuries. So they’re still not going to cause much of a threat to him.
Dr Hope’s Sick Notes:
If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up because it helps the algorithm and check out some of my other fight scenes I’ve done: the Batman warehouse scene, Kingsman church scene, Daredevil hallway scene, the Sherlock discombobulate scene, and a bunch of others. And leave me a comment if there’s any others that spring to mind. This one was actually a recommendation from you guys. Finally, if you made it this far, thank you and why not give this channel a subscribe and come along on the journey with us. I hope you’re all well and I’ll be back soon.
