Ladies and Gents,
I have two un-related but interesting questions to ask… First: In the movies you see a person get hit with either the butt of a pistol or a “judo chop” to the back of the head, and they drop like a sack of wet noodles… Is this even possible, or is this pure Hollywood ??? Second question : When I watch 'rasslin on tv some smuck gets choked out in a “sleeper hold”, once again, is this B.S. or can you really render someone un conscious by using that move on them???
Please feel free to post me about this, 'cause I gotta know… 
THANKS!!!
The knockout blow to the back of the head is pure Hollywood. The TV tropes page on the subject sums it up pretty well:
That same page also answers your choke hold question:
From here: Tap on the Head - TV Tropes
Moderator Action
While we’re at it, I think I’ll knock this thread on the back of the head and drag it over to Cafe Society. While the question as asked is factual, I think it will do better in CS since this will also allow folks to comment on the Hollywood aspects of it.
Moving thread from General Questions to Cafe Society.
ETA: I also edited the thread title. Please use more descriptive titles in the future.
“*Needless to say this is not Truth in Television at all; a blow to the head is probably the least reliable way of rendering someone unconscious. Any head injury severe enough to cause unconsciousness is also severe enough to cause a skull fracture, concussion, intracranial bleeding, permanent cognitive impairment, amnesia, blindness, personality change, and even death. *”
I’m not sure TV Tropes is a good source of medical info. The above is not true as any number of boxing matches, MMA bouts and YouTube videos will attest.
A kick to the temple can drop you to your knees and make you dizzy. Learned that sparring in kung fu class.
So I think a harder kick or a blow with a weapon might cause temporary unconciousness/non-functionality.
Well, fighting authorities take knockouts pretty seriously. From the Wikipedia article on knockouts:
In fact, some researchers blame gloves - in the bare knuckle fighting days, head and face punches were uncommon, as the fist would likely break on the skull. Gloves allow headshots and knockouts, but many more people die as a consequence. A large number of people die as a result of boxing injury (70 between 1998 and 2006). Most boxers show some signs of neurological injury as a result of their sporting activities. MMA is somewhat less dangerous, due to not having a standing eight count, and having other means of winning a fight that does not involve a knockout. It is still a brutal sport, though.
Other contact sports (including American Football) are also starting to get similarly concerned, and have mandatory stand-downs for concussed players.
Plus, many such sports injuries and knock-outs - the person is not really “out cold” so much as groggy and unable to move beyond a bit of writhing arms and legs and very groggy and hazy abnbout what is going on around him for a while. The ones really out cold fit the situation of the first reply, from TV tropes; seriously injured.
IIRC the famous boxing “long count” the fellow admitted he did not hear the count until about halfway, if the referee had started counting on time he would not have gotten up before the count of 10. But there you go - get a solid head hit by a heavyweight contender, back on his feet within 20 seconds.
In fact, there was an inside bank job a few decades ago in the maritime provinces (New Brunswick?) where the two employees said they were knocked out by the robbers. This immediately set off alarm bells for the police specifically for that - nobody gets “knocked out” for minutes.
This was not a great movie by any means, but James Brolin’s 1981 action movie High Risk has a great scene. Fast forward to about the 28:30 mark, and see for yourself:
To set up the scene, a bunch of amateurs have broken into a crime lord’s mansion and stolen a lot of his money. They run into a witness, and figure they’ll do what they’ve seen done in dozens of movies: whack him in the back of the head with a gun, and he’ll fall to the ground unconscious, silently.
What really happens? What I’m pretty sure WOULD really happen if someone hit me in the head with the butt of a gun.
[QUOTE=engineercompgeek]
Quote:
Needless to say this is not Truth in Television at all; a blow to the head is probably the least reliable way of rendering someone unconscious. Any head injury severe enough to cause unconsciousness is also severe enough to cause a skull fracture, concussion, intracranial bleeding, permanent cognitive impairment, amnesia, blindness, personality change, and even death. Also, unlike fiction, unconsciousness from a blow to the head usually lasts only a few seconds (not some indeterminate time lasting over an hour, during which the victim can be carted around, tied up, dressed, undressed, etc.) Unconsciousness that lasts more than a minute usually indicates brain damage. It will probably take months to recover, if not years, and the injured person will likely have permanent impairment.
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In high school, my freshman and sophomore Latin teacher was a priest who’d suffered a blow to the head years earlier, and had been knocked unconscious. He mostly recovered, but he still went into petit mal epileptic seizures every few months (occasionally in the middle of a class). He sometimes told us, “Remember that when you see Mannix getting knocked out, then coming to like it was nothing.”
As you say, head injuries are NOT a small thing, and there can be repercussions for decades to come.
I remember watching Superman as a kid, and they usually just hit the shoulder area to knock someone out - seemed strange even to a 7 year old.