Just watched Predator. There’s a scene near the end where the Native American dude decides to go mano-a-alieno with the Predator.
Of course, that was a BIG MISTAKE[sup]©[/sup].
The Predator digs in and rips the guy’s spine and skull right out of his back.
Is such a thing possible, or is it just another Hollywood invention?
Hollywood invention. It’s essentially trying to rip out a skeleton from the rest of the body, except on a slightly smaller scale. The spine with adjacent ribs are far too well fused to be pulled out. It was a real bitch just removing a single vertebrae from our cadaver back in med school. And after trying for a while, we departed from the elegant dissection technique in favor of brute force!
Sawzall or axe? Just curious, of course.
IIRC, in that scene the guy’s already dead and dragged up to the top of a tree - maybe the Pred did some preliminary work like sawing the ribs away from the spine before yanking it out.
Of course, I always thought the spine would tear away from the skull before the skull came loose.
Maybe he was angling for a spot in Mortal Kombat.
When my back hurts a lot, I beg my husband to do exactly that- just rip it right out by the skull. But put it back after a few days when it’s feeling better.
Of course, we don’t actually see the Predator ripping out the spine, only waving in the air. He probably did cut it loose from the ribs, but left the brain attached.
So the underlying question is; if you apply enough force to rip a body in half, just how eactly wour it tear? How much strength would be needed I couldn’t say, but surely it’s thoretically possible,
And I’d have to say it depends on how and where the force is applied.Simply pulling on the head while holding the body will most likely end in a simple decapitation. I would imagine, though IANA specialist in this area. I see that as structurally fairly similar to hanging, and there areat least some cases of decapitation during hangings.
I imagine that any other scenario is much harder to predict. For example, if sombody is pulled apart by the wrists and ankles, there are so many possible points if structural failure – the wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles – that it seems unlikely you’d get the same results consistently. You’d have to settle for probabilities.
Still, I think, someone with decent butchering skills could make it happen.