– CECIL
Explosives? Really? More “in” than such tradional methods as poisoning (pills, radiator fluid, etc.) or suffocation (hanging, filling up the garage with exhaust fumes, etc.)?
I noticed something strange about this column – it makes a reference to the movie, “Ordinary People.” The date on the column is 1974, but “Ordinary People” didn’t come out until 1980. Cite. Also, Judith Guest’s novel that the movie is based on was first published in 1976. Cite.
So, is that a typo in the column’s date header, or is Cecil more extraordinary than we’ve thought?
Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the Straight Dope web site.
To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).
Cecil’s column can be found on-line at the link provided by Duck Duck Goose.
The column (including Slug Signorino’s illustration) can also be found on pages 204-205 of Cecil Adams’ book «The Straight Dope (1984; reissued 1986, 1998)».
moderator, «Comments on Cecil’s Columns»
It should be pointed out (at the risk of starting a battle over how one interprets the US constitution’s 2nd amendment) that firearms are the biggest method of suicide in the U.S.A. and even there, it’s overwhelmingly males who use this method (why, I don’t know). Most methods of poisoning can be agonizing – if you take too much acetaminophen (paracetemol to non-North Americans) you actually don’t have much in the way of symptoms for the first 48 hours other than nausea. But then your kidneys and liver slowly start to shut down, and I’m told by doctors, in their euphemistic “medspeak” that it’s “not a very comfortable way to go” – the suffering can last for several weeks.
Hanging is only if you want to get revenge against the living – I’m told that a hanged* body is very gruesome looking.
Anyway, to the question – there are 2 reasons to take a warm bath as you slit your wrists. One is that the warmth of the water keeps the blood pressure up (although I’m told it’s only a minor effect), and more importantly, it slows down the rate at which the blood clots. It’s counter-intuitive, but cutting open an artery may not always have the effect one thinks. Arteries, as opposed to veins, are very elastic, and if severed clean through, the ends may pull back and seal themselves off (thank you God, or evolution, depending on your faith system). Veins don’t do that, but their disadvantage is that a) they lie too close to nerves, and if you sever a nerve in your wrist and survive, you’ll have a paralyzed hand for the rest of your life; and b) their blood pressure is lower, the blood doesn’t move as fast, and so the blood clots more easily.
*sorry for the, er, gallows humour, but a person is “hanged” as a means of death. A pet peeve of mine is when people say a person was “hung.” That can only – and then only in theory – be applicable to half of the human population…
According to Geo Stone’s book Suicide and Attempted Suicide, it depends on how quickly and completely the blood flow to the head is obstructed.
The jugular veins (by which blood leaves the head) take less pressure to collapse than the carotid arteries (by which blood enters the head), so if the rope is positioned and tightened such that it only applies enough pressure to collapse the jugular veins and not the carotid arteries, blood continues to flow into the head but can’t leave, creating the horrifyingly bloated, purple, tongue-protruding image we associate with a hanged body.
If the rope tightens quickly enough and completely enough to cut off the jugular veins and the carotid arteries at the same time, however, blood won’t flow into or out of the head, and the person’s face apparently often looks quite normal. In fact, on page 332, Stone says “… while some look livid, about 60 percent of hangers have a ‘pale and placid’ face.”
One interesting thing I learned from reading Suicide and Attempted Suicide was that it is not necessary, in hanging or strangulation deaths, to block the airway at all to cause death. Simply compressing the jugular veins and/or carotid arteries is more efficient and much less painful. (It apparently takes 33 pounds of pressure to collapse the trachea, while it only takes 4.5 pounds of pressure to block the jugular veins and 7-11 pounds to block the carotid arteries.)
I apologize for not posting a link in the OP, and thanks to Duck Duck Gosse for supplying it.
But to make my question more explicit, what’s the deal with “explosives” as a suicide method? Outside of politically motivated suicide/murder bombers in the Middle East, I’ve never heard of someone blowing themselves up as a means of suicide.
That would be, “thanks to Duck Duck Goose.”
I suspect that explosives are a very rare form of suicide, but are lumped into firearms because of the “boom” factor. Firearms, however, would seem to be very common.
Women choose firearms less than men because bullets make huge holes in the corpse, and leave blood, guts, brains, whatever all over the place. Women tend to be more concerned about leaving a corpse that can be buried open casket and not make the mourners puke.