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This Is Why People Faint at the Sight of Blood
It could have something to do with an overachieving vagus nerve
One afternoon when she was six years old, Kim Petschek was walking home from school when she stubbed her toe on the sidewalk, resulting in a small — but bloody — gash. The next thing she remembers is waking up on the street, sprawled out face-first on the concrete with her front two teeth knocked out from the impact of the fall. She had fainted. “And then I was really bleeding!” she says with a laugh.
“I think for me there has to be some idea of danger, or that there’s a big problem.”
Looking back, Petschek (now 65 years old) pinpoints the toe-stubbing incident as the first time she ever passed out at the sight of blood. Unfortunately, though, it wouldn’t be the last: Throughout adolescence and adulthood, Petschek has fainted almost every time she’s seen blood, be it during a scene in a movie or even just hearing about the birth of a co-worker’s baby. “I think for me there has to be some idea of danger, or that there’s a big problem,” Petschek says, adding that minor scrapes or pinpricks don’t have the same effect, nor does the blood she encounters in her job as a veterinarian technician.
