Is it really possible or is that just a load?
My self-defense teacher said it was. But of course he had never done it, or even tried it.
Thinking about it, though, I would say you might get lucky (or unlucky), but probably, since the nose is made of --I want to say gristle, but that’s wrong–it would probably just break. I hate it when snopes doesn’t have the answer, but just more discussion.
The advice given by self-defense teacher: aim upward and don’t aim for the nose, aim for the back of his head.
Cartilage. The nose is made of cartilage.
Every martial arts instructor I’ve had has said that it’s possible only in a trivial putting-your-fist-into-his-warm-juicy-brains way.
Cartilage.
I once had a college roommate threaten to kill me by driving my nose up into my brain. He didn’t. This same roommate also claimed that when combined he and his skanky girlfriend were like the 47th most powerful psychic entity in the universe, so I tended not to take what he said too literally.
I’m not sure which I find more threatening. The nose up the brain bit or the fact that I’m rooming with a complete nut job. I wonder how he came up with the 47th, why not 46 or 48? :dubious:
Someone (the OP) was watching Adam Corolla tonight on Comedy Central! 
Dang, I wish I could get a source, but I remember reading somewhere that it’s a load. Is there even an open space between your nose and your brain? Isn’t there a hard piece of bone between that? If that were the case, it’d have to be an inhumanly hard and fast uppercut to get cartilage to go through bone.
Well, the nose is made a cartilage, and thin, fragile bone, The skull, on the other hand is dense bone.
In a normal individual, there is skull between the nose and the brain.
Now if the person being struck had a crypto-myelomeningecele, the story could be different. However, since most sufferers, who’s defect isn’t decovered in time, die of massive brain infections at an early age, it means you’d be crushing nose of a 5 year old . How cool would that be? :dubious:
Sorry, I can’t find a web- site that addresses the particular defect. Its rather rare. Its basicly, the same as spina-bifida. Where the bone and or skin doesn’t form properly around the spinal cord.
With crypto-myelomeningecele, the bone below the eye orbits doesn’t develop, so there’s communication between the sinus and the brain. The child usually also has a cleft palate.
My Sifu says it’s hogwash. The reason you hit someone in the nose is to cause enough blood, tearing of the eyes and momentary distraction for you to run away.
not that i necessarily believe it, but …
i was taught that it could be done, in two steps:
- strike down on the nose to break it
- thrust up to push the piece up into the brain.
no one i know has claimed to have done this.
Also heard it is bunk from my martial art instructors over the years.
Feel the bridge of your nose and the cartilege. What piece would actually go up into your brain? Nothing there that seems like it could smash or break off and enter your brain cavity. Plus, I would imagine that one would see many more deaths in boxing if this were possible from someone catching an upper-cut with their face.
There are ways of killing people with your bare hands (and NO, no one here should post them else the Mods will be upset!) but this ain’t one of them.
-Tcat
Hitting someone in the nose with a slug from a .357 can kill a man.
I would think that if it was true professional boxers would be running a close risk of death every time they got in the ring.
One miss-placed rabbit punch to the nose and your dead?
I doubt it.
Yep.
But its something I’ve always wondered about anyway.
It strikes me (no pun intended) that even if it were posible to push a piece of bone from the nose into the brain, it would’nt necesarily be fatal, and certainly not instantly. The part of the brain that would be damaged simply isn’t that important. Doctors used to lobotomize patients by ramming an icepick through the eye socket into the brain and swinging it from side to side, for crying out loud. (cite). If that doesn’t kill you (and apparently it didn’t) I doubt a little sliver from the nose would do it.
Isn’t one hard blow to the temple the best bet for quickly killing a guy with one punch? With internal bleeding from a hard body blow (Houdini’s demise) being a slower way for someone to die from a punch?
I can only recall one news story of someone dieing from a single punch, and it was from a single blow to the temple. It happened in Odessa TX in a bar parking lot, and it was one friend punching another friend. But I can’t find a cite for the life of me.
I don’t know Dio, but the case up near you recently might put an argument to it. That kid up in Roseville that died after being one-punched by his “friend” over the pot pipe might be a case of it. From what I’ve read in the newspaper accounts, he had the kid in a head lock with his left arm, and punched up and at his nose with his right fist. Which certainly would fit the angle of attack of the mythical martial arts move.
I never came across that kids actual cause of death though. I’ll poke around a little, but I wonder if that was actually the case if the paper would actually report it?
New fell to the ground, and died of internal head injuries several hours later.
Kinda vague.
I thought I read a similar news story, but it was two (drunk) friends punching each other in the chest on a dare. Apparently one of the guys got punched so hard he had a heart attack and died.
Yeah, pretty vague. The fact that it took several hours for the kid to die would suggest some sort of brain hemorrhaging or something rather than the instant, Hollywood, nose to the brain thing.
It’s looking to me like there might be some kind of theoretical, flukey chance that a piece of cartilage can get up the sinus cavity and maybe cause some problems, but instant death seems to be complete urban legend.
So I guess that thing about ripping a guy’s heart out and showing it o him before he dies is impossible as well.