# What "instantaneous/painless" deaths are not instantaneous/painless? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2016, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063 "2016-04-13T04:13:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/21 "2016-04-14T01:18:26Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I often use this as my suggested method for painless execution, without risk of failure, so I feel like I should defend it. > > If a large, several ton, mass was dropped on you from a 20-30 feet up, I think it’s safe to say that your body (and brain) would be compacted to a wafer thinness in less time than your pain sensors could transmit a signal to your brain, from the time of first contact with the mass. > > There is some chance your body could be quickly bounced around between the mass and the ground, and your head ejected out the side instead of being flattened, but a wide enough mass, a kevlar body bag to enclose you anchored in place, etc. could be used to prevent such an eventuality. > > But, assuming that enough, catastrophic damage is done to the body in a short enough amount of time, you can definitely be taken out before registering it. > > See [Time on the Brain: How You Are Always Living In the Past, and Other Quirks of Perception | Scientific American](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/time-on-the-brain-how-you-are-always-living-in-the-past-and-other-quirks-of-perception/) Rather like [this](http://youtu.be/VaBxQPgQwrM) (safe for work, unless you are emotionally attached to Barbie dolls). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/22 "2016-04-14T02:03:31Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I often use this as my suggested method for painless execution, without risk of failure, so I feel like I should defend it. > > If a large, several ton, mass was dropped on you from a 20-30 feet up, I think it’s safe to say that your body (and brain) would be compacted to a wafer thinness in less time than your pain sensors could transmit a signal to your brain, from the time of first contact with the mass. > > There is some chance your body could be quickly bounced around between the mass and the ground, and your head ejected out the side instead of being flattened, but a wide enough mass, a kevlar body bag to enclose you anchored in place, etc. could be used to prevent such an eventuality. > > But, assuming that enough, catastrophic damage is done to the body in a short enough amount of time, you can definitely be taken out before registering it. > > See [Time on the Brain: How You Are Always Living In the Past, and Other Quirks of Perception | Scientific American](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/time-on-the-brain-how-you-are-always-living-in-the-past-and-other-quirks-of-perception/) In Olden Dayes in India apparently they used to execute people by having an elephant crush the guy’s head with a foot. Person puts head on stump, elephant puts foot on head and bears down on command. A bit like Gallagher & watermelons. I have no idea how quickly the elephant developed skull-crushing force. I’d bet a second at least, but not 10. Once the skull cracks, the collapse to flat would be small fractions of a second. Then when the major part of your brain is extruded between the elephant’s toes & the rest splattered on the spectators, I guaran-damn-tee it doesn’t hurt a bit. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/23 "2016-04-14T03:13:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In Olden Dayes in India apparently they used to execute people by having an elephant crush the guy’s head with a foot. Person puts head on stump, elephant puts foot on head and bears down on command. A bit like Gallagher & watermelons. > > I have no idea how quickly the elephant developed skull-crushing force. I’d bet a second at least, but not 10. Once the skull cracks, the collapse to flat would be small fractions of a second. Then when the major part of your brain is extruded between the elephant’s toes & the rest splattered on the spectators, I guaran-damn-tee it doesn’t hurt a bit. The elephants were also trained to give quick or slow deaths, upon command. If you really pissed off the Raja, the order was given to Squish… Slowly… And mush up and tear off the limbs first… _brr_ > **[Execution by elephant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_elephant)** > > Execution by elephant, or Gunga Rao, was a method of capital punishment in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in India, where Asian elephants were used to crush, dismember, or torture captives during public executions. The animals were trained to kill victims immediately or to torture them slowly over a prolonged period. Most commonly employed by royalty, the elephants were used to signify both the ruler's power of life and death over his subjects and his ability to control wild animals. > The... ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/24 "2016-04-14T03:36:04Z")
Sequential thread titles! [How horrible was it to be killed by Mount St. Helens?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=790162) [What “instantaneous/painless” deaths are not instantaneous/painless?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=790255) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/25 "2016-04-14T03:40:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > But all that assumes the brain is sufficiently destroyed to not register \*\*\*subsequent \*\*\*pain. > > What if a mangled brain can still register pain? What if the brain is 30% destroyed, not 80-100% destroyed? I always wondered: When you read about those horrific car or plane crashes, with little grey blobs of the passengers’ brains splattered all about, is it not possible that some of those little blobs can, internally and within themselves, still sense pain? Even if there is no “consciousness” or “awareness” in any normal meaning of those words? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/26 "2016-04-14T03:53:28Z")
Another generally quick way to die, of controversial gruesomeness: Getting dragged into a wood-chipper. You get chipped alive, but it only takes … what? … one second at the most? Is it “fast and merciful” if it is simply that fast? (Let’s presume you go in head-first.) See also, above question about disembodied brain blobs. For a longer-lasting horror, be the father who gets to watch your kid get wood-chipped. ([Yeah, that happened.](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127860/Boy-6-killed-helping-father-wood-chipper-branch-pulled-in.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/27 "2016-04-14T04:03:15Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > …Another Doper mentioned someone who claimed that a person who falls to their death from a height would have died from a heart attack before hitting the ground. That doesn’t sound physically or medically plausible at all… - raises hand \* I, for one, have posted that, having been told it by a physician following a friend’s suicide. Maybe he was lying to spare my feelings. But certainly, huge, huge adrenalin rushes alters your subjective sense of _anything_. In the Mt. St. Helen’s thread I ventured some data on pain nerve conduction speeds. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/28 "2016-04-14T04:03:56Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > I have seen reliable documentary evidence that 16 tons is the optimal mass. And what do you get? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/29 "2016-04-14T04:04:55Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Same for deaths involving high temperature. There were Dopers arguing that if someone falls into molten lava, they would die instantly. But wouldn’t the brain, which feels pain as long as it is conscious, and is protected by a skull that affords temporary heat protection, and wouldn’t lose oxygen immediately, therefore still be awake and registering searing agony for some time? To feel pain you have to have functioning nerves. A third-degree burn is often painless (though surrounding the deep burn will usually be lighter, second-degree burns which are extremely painful). With lava, even the air metres above is hot enough to roast flesh in seconds, so by the time you’re actually touching the lava your nerves are toasted and you wouldn’t feel anything. _That said_…the pain signals sent while you were moving through the superheated air might just arrive at that point. So I’d say…it’s complicated, it depends on how you fall in. If you’re falling quickly then I’d say you’re toasted before any pain signals can make it to the brain. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/30 "2016-04-14T05:52:09Z")
> [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > And what do you get? No 1 Kentucky would take even more muscle and blood and skin and bones. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/31 "2016-04-14T07:16:47Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > That high density means you can’t afford to fall from very high, lest you be killed by the impact alone. Awww, boo. Then you’d miss all the _fun_. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/32 "2016-04-14T08:32:20Z")
I’ve wondered sometimes about people being shot at the base of the skull. Supposedly this is an area (low and behind the ear if shooting from the side) that police snipers aim for when trying to instantly remove any possibility that the bad guy could fire off a shot or detonate a bomb. The bullet is said to go through the nerve bundle at the base of the skull and render the subject instantly dead, limp, and incapable even of involuntary movement. But I’ve wondered whether the brain itself, above this nerve bundle, continues to think and feel after the nerve bundle has been hit. The brain itself is above the point of impact, and although the body is completely limp and gives the appearance of being dead, it seems to me the brain might continue to function and feel things for some time after the shot is fired. And what would it feel if so? The nerve bundle has been completely or partially destroyed, so is it feeling the pain of a gun shot from nerves above the entry site, or, assuming the nerves in the bundle are all destroyed, lost in a blinding flash of nerve impulses flying hither and yon? Or something else? And what about in the case of someone who puts a gun in their mouth and fires it, hitting the same area? The hole through the nerve bundle would be only as wide as the diameter of the bullet, so it looks like there could be quite a bit of the nerve bundle that remains intact, despite whatever ripple effect the force of the bullet might create. There’s also the possibility the bullet might be fired somewhat off center, thereby perhaps leaving some of the nerve bundle intact. Is there any way to reliably determine whether death is truly instantaneous with these types of wounds, or whether the brain might continue to function for a while despite the body giving every outward appearance of being dead? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/33 "2016-04-14T09:57:43Z")
If the hypothetical soon-to-be-deceased person is hooked up to an EEG you could get a record of brain activity. It wouldn’t be absolute proof of continued consciousness, although you might be able to record when, exactly, brain function ceases entirely. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/34 "2016-04-14T11:06:21Z")
My first job out of university was at a research institute for the Meat Industry. The animal physiologists had studied slaughter processes for cattle and sheep. This included EEG monitoring and mild stimulation (producing a measurable EEG response) before and during slaughter both with and without stunning. As I recall, the conclusion was that even without stunning, sensate response after the throat was cut was at most a couple of seconds, and there was no measurable pain response to the cut itself or to any subsequent stimulation. So I think a proper throat cutting is pretty much “instantaneous”. Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/35 "2016-04-14T12:05:56Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > - raises hand \* > > I, for one, have posted that, having been told it by a physician following a friend’s suicide. Maybe he was lying to spare my feelings. But certainly, huge, huge adrenalin rushes alters your subjective sense of _anything_. > > In the Mt. St. Helen’s thread I ventured some data on pain nerve conduction speeds. Bergan Evans, the proto-Cecil, wrote about the “he was dead LONG before he hit the ground” meme in one of his books, and debunks it at length. Unfortunately, adrenaline rush or not, you’re likely to be alive and functioning when you hit the ground. Regarding the “falling into lava” thing, there certainly have been at least three cases when people leapt into hot springs to rescue dogs dumb enough to dive in. In one case the guy died of extensive third degree burns (so did the dog) – a rare case of a “True” in Snopes: > **[Did a Man Burn to Death Rescuing a Dog from Hot Springs?](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hope-springs-eternal/)** > > Burn deaths and injuries result from people trying to rescue dogs from boiling hot springs. > [@](#): > > On 20 July 1981, 24-year-old David Allen Kirwan from La Canada, California, was driving through Yellowstone’s Fountain Paint Pot thermal area with his friend Ronald Ratliff and Ratliff’s dog Moosie. At about 1:00 P.M. they parked their truck to get out and take a closer look at the hot springs; Moosie escaped from the truck, ran towards nearby Celestine Pool (a thermal spring whose water temperature has been measured at over 200°), jumped in, and began yelping. > > Kirwan and Ratliff rushed over to the pool to aid the terrified dog, and Kirwan’s attitude indicated he was about to go into the spring after it. According to bystanders, several people tried to warn Kirwan off by yelling at him not to jump in, but he shouted “Like hell I won’t!” back at them, took two steps into the pool, and then dove head-first into the boiling spring. > > Kirwan swam out to the dog and attempted to take it to shore; he then disappeared underwater, let go of the dog, and tried to climb out of the pool. Ratliff helped pull Kirwan out of the hot spring (resulting in second-degree burns to his own feet), and another visitor led Kirwan to the sidewalk as he reportedly muttered, “That was stupid. How bad am I? That was a stupid thing I did.” That one still gives me the creeps. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/36 "2016-04-14T12:11:30Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’ve wondered sometimes about people being shot at the base of the skull. Supposedly this is an area (low and behind the ear if shooting from the side) that police snipers aim for when trying to instantly remove any possibility that the bad guy could fire off a shot or detonate a bomb. The bullet is said to go through the nerve bundle at the base of the skull and render the subject instantly dead, limp, and incapable even of involuntary movement. > > But I’ve wondered whether the brain itself, above this nerve bundle, continues to think and feel after the nerve bundle has been hit. This presumes that the damage by the bullet is limited to the severing of nerves in the bullet’s path. A gunshot to the head, especially from a high-powered sniper rifle, will send a powerful shock wave throughout the brain with concussive force, rendering the target unconscious immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/37 "2016-04-14T12:56:00Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > I have seen reliable documentary evidence that 16 tons is the optimal mass. In that setting people usually get another day older so, no, death is not instantaneous. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/38 "2016-04-14T13:01:57Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I always wondered: When you read about those horrific car or plane crashes, with little grey blobs of the passengers’ brains splattered all about, is it not possible that some of those little blobs can, internally and within themselves, still sense pain? Even if there is no “consciousness” or “awareness” in any normal meaning of those words? What is “pain” in the absence of “consciousness”? Scare quotes sprinkled throughout to emphasize this is about philosophical definitions as much as physiology. In your hand you have different nerves dedicated to sensing position, pressure, temperature and pain. From the POV of the nerve cell itself, it either fires or not. Regardless of the type of nerve, the biochemistry of firing is the same (roughly). From the POV of an electrochemical sensor attached to the synapse at the other end, a firing looks like a firing looks like a firing. In what sense is the dedicated pain nerve “feeling pain”? IMO it isn’t. At some point the signals from all these nerves arrive in the brain. And are run through the magical (to us so far) network that combines and separates, amplifies and de-amplifies, etc. Eventually giving rise, after enough processing, to the conscious (or sub-conscious) sensations of position, pressure, temperature, or pain. Where does the “pain” arise? At what point do “nerve impulses” become “pain”? By stretched analogy to computers, when does voltage in a circuit become knowledge e.g. a wiki page on your screen? Or at a simpler level, when does voltage in a circuit become a reading of the temperature of some apparatus being monitored? Evidence from simple animals shows they can have avoidance reactions to noxious stimuli. In fact that’s one of the hallmarks of life. But is it “pain”? Or “preference”? Or just reflex: stimulus / response without anything deeper than because “it works that way.” e.g. pull the rope down and the bucket goes up. The bucket isn’t moving to avoid the “pain” of the rope otherwise being stretched. Even if somehow a small teaspoon-sized gibbet of brain matter was supplied with oxygen, water, fuel, and all the rest of its needs, it makes little sense IMO to speak of it being “conscious” of “pain”. It makes even less sense in the real world when all those supplies are cut off and the cells only have their internal stores to consume before they shut down. ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/39 "2016-04-14T13:48:49Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > I have seen reliable documentary evidence that 16 tons is the optimal mass. > [@Nars\_Glinley](#): > > And what do you get? In the context of this thread, certainly NOT another day older! ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063/40 "2016-04-14T17:50:09Z")
But certainly deeper in debt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-instantaneous-painless-deaths-are-not-instantaneous-painless/752063.md?page=3)