Interesting from that citation that the heart remained active for about an hour after the decapitation and that it pulsated normaly for almost half that time. Would it therefore have been possible to feel a pulse in the wrist of a recently decapitated person?
I will not claim this to be the definitive answer, but. I would expect the answer to be “no.” Reasoning: BP is 0/0 mm Hg. There just isn’t any hydrostatic mechanism for transmitting cardiac activity to the veins in the wrist.
But if the heart is still pumping then their would be a +ve Blood Pressure, wouldn’t there?
There would of course be loss of pressure at the neck wounds, and no returning blood from the neck veins, but is the hears link to the arteries in the arms sufficiently separated from these for pressure to remain in such a way that blood pressure and pulse could be taken at the arm?
All arteries begin at the aorta. If the carotids are severed, it will reduce the pressure in the ascending aorta almost immediately, which prevents pressure from being maintained anywhere else in the vascular system. Simple hydraulics.
nothing in biology is simple. Cleanly severed arteries have a habit of spasming to limit blood loss.
Having said that, I’ve stood up too quickly and greyed out enough times to be skeptical of any post decapitation conciuosness.
Lastly, the OP refers too sawing and slicing so I’ve no idea when blood flow was lost, motor control below the neck would be lost with spinal cord severence, and with it the ability to speak, but facial expresion and counciousness should remain until abscence of perfusion causes hypoxia and hypoglycemia.
Allow me to resurrect this morbid thread after stumbling across it.
Here are my 2 cents:
I have never seen a human decapitation (and hope to God I never do), but I was present at a turkey slaughter when I was a kid. I was only around 10 years old (I’m 31 now). I was at my friends house and his father had been raising turkey’s and it was time to slaughter them.
There were 5 turkeys and the ranged from ~15 lbs all the way up to a 35 pounder!
The method of slaughter was machete to neck. Now I remember this vividly, the first four turkeys when they had their head cut off their body flopped around for 4-5 seconds, and their heads made a few movements (beaks opening and closing 1 or 2 times).
However when the 35 pounder had his head cut off it was surreal. The head was on the ground and it’s beak was opening and closing for 5-10 seconds. But the body was running around with no head inside the pen! It ran around for 5-10 minutes, yes minutes!! It was bouncing off the cage fence, it fell over a few times and it managed to get back on it’s feet. It was very very weird.
Now I don’t know how human and turkey anatomy differ (I am definitely not a doctor or scientist) , but from what I saw I wouldn’t totally discount enedra’s story.
MtM
You weren’t imagining it. Many people working around poultry slaughter have had similar experiences.
Apparently turkeys and chickens have nervous systems that are quite different than humans. There’s a well-documented case of Mike the headless chicken who lived for 18 months without a head. He could walk around, was fed through his neck with an eye dropper:
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/content_pages/record.asp?recordid=54463
Therefore I’m not certain this has much bearing on the human decapitation case.
Okay joema, that is just f’d up! :eek:
18 months!!! Crazy!
MtM
That was a special case. They didn’t sever all of his brain. You’d need to read the story in more detail. But it has no bearing on the human story.
In order to settle this debate in an objective manner, I decided to “see for myself” if a human head could remain conscious post decapitation.
I have chopped my head off with a pair of safety scissors, and I am currently typing this post, bodiless, with a pencil from my mouth.
As you can tell, I am quite coherent, and possibly more articulate than with my uncoordinated body hanging on relentlessly.
I actually preformed the gruesome act about 2 hours ago. I was about to type my response when I got hungy, and after finishing a very unsatisfying sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit, I watched TV for while.
There! Are you happy straightdopers!? An objective account of a conscious bodiless head.
My wife will be getting home from work in about an hour, and I’m hoping that she’ll take me to the hospital to get everything reattached. . . . In a separation like this, who gets the kids??
The guillotine was introduced as a specifically humane method of capital punishment; do you have a citation stating that it was abolished specifically because it was a cruel method?
And even if it was considered cruel, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the cruelty was perceived to be happening after decapitation.
If you want to debate whether a severed head still has a conscience, I think you need to go to Great Debates.
What’s that? ::::::You’re already up to your neck in great debates? Oh, dear.
What’s the problem here? I would imagine a conscious severed head might feel brief pangs of guilt for having stained the rug, or for falling heavily on someone’s toe.
I presume you would, as head of household.
RR
I presume you would, as head of household.
RR
Excellent dedication to uncovering the truth! In one fell swoop (whateverthehell “fell swoop” is), you’ve definitively answered one question, and provided us with the means to answer another: how much does a human head weigh. Would you mind rolling onto this portable scale please? paging Gabriela, anyone seen Gabriela?
However, there is no DISproof. We can quickly conjecture that our consciousness lasts for a time until sometime after our brains are no longer supplied with oxygen. It may not be seconds, but decapitation is not an on-off switch. The chemical processees are too slow to be instantaneous.
The last post to this thread before yesterday’s was from 2006. And there is a new thread on the topic. So, rather than run two simultaneous threads, or merge the two together, I’m going to close this one and suggest that future post be made at: Decapitated Heads Remain Conscience? - Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports - Straight Dope Message Board
dropzone, if you’d like to repost what you said in the new thread, that’s OK to do.