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[dieffenbachj]

I have a story I want to write up ( it's pretty epic and hilarious all at once ) of how one of my fortresses met its demise. But one thing that puzzles me is that, twice in the story, two different dwarves ended up crippled, unable to move, but only AFTER a delay.

The first dwarf fell down a mine shaft (like, four stories at least) and managed to crawl, leaving a blood trail, to the infirmary before he became immobile. The second got pickaxed nearly to death by a berserk dwarf, but managed to crawl away and hide in my water tunnels, only to become fully crippled once down there. He stayed that way for months, slowly dying of hunger and thirst.

I'm just not familiar enough with the kinds of punishments dwarves can take before becoming crippled to know what happened. For the sake of making my writeup of the story seem legitimate, it'd help to know what might cause that

[Maynot]

Dwarves need to become unconscious for someone to rescue them and bring them to the hospital for treatment.  I think this might be a bug where the dwarf in question did not pass out from pain.  Therefore, he was not rescued and all the other dwarves do not recognize them as injured/recovering/in hospital.

[krenshala]

Assuming they were diagnosed, have you read through their medical history yet?  That might have the information you seek (e.g., nerve damage from injury).  There is also the possibility of a syndrome at work, but that would typically affect other dwarves as well.

[thegoatgod_pan]

If there is no hospitals dwarves will kinda ignore non-debilitating injury. This includes, for example, a neatly severed arm, but not a shattered leg (usually). As soon as you designate a hospital everyone with a cut pinkie will rush it and demand diagnosis.

Generally the tougher the dwarf the more insane punishment s/he can take. I remember in my first fort a axedwarf's husband got cut down and she lost her arm, ran to bed, rested, got back up and drove off the goblins single handedly (no pun intended)

If they are genuinely messed up (lost ability to stand, grasp), they will wait for aid and die of thirst without it.

[dieffenbachj]

Well, this happened a long while ago, so I don't have the medical records--but it's a great story, so I want to tell it anyway

I know that I felt astonished at the first dwarf, because I was pretty sure both his legs were broken when he climbed up four flights of stairs to the medical bay. I also know at that time that I sorted my dwarves into jobs by physical attributes and personalities--so a mining dwarf would've had 'quick healer', 'tough', or both. Plus he was legendary, so, huge boost to abilities.

The dwarf who became immobile after running away from a stabbing... not sure.  I'm guessing maybe they ignored the pain for a while, ran away, but then passed out and, with nobody to recover them/bring them to the hospital, they just stayed there? Or maybe became too weak from blood loss... just not sure.