Quote:
Originally Posted by Dowly
(Post 1458265)
Gotta agree with that. I read an article about the issue few years back, where an doctor or scientist of some sort was present on guillotine executions to observe the decapitated heads and he found out that the victim's eyes and mouth/tongue, in some cases, could move as long as 10 seconds after the decapitation. Is it reflex or conscious movement, I don't know but it's a scary thought. :doh:
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You mean the guy who used to raise the head up to the baying crowd, so the victims last view of life was a crowd of people calling for their blood and cheering at their demise?
If anyone saw that film of the Philippino guys - contractors for the us army as cooks - being murdered by the al-Qaeda guy in iraq (I think it was)... half a dozen of them are shot point blank back of the head with an AK, but one poor bastard has his throat cut with a knife, and the ****** doing it proceeds to saw the guys head off then stand the severed head on the chest - body still twitching, and the lips still moving...
I think I commented at the time when I saw it - I've seen plenty of animals put to sleep, or slaughtered etc.
That poor sod suffered a worse death than many of the animals I refer to. By far the worst thing about it was the noises the poor guy made as his wind-pipe and vocal chords were severed. I'll remember that as long as I live.
So, there's definitely anecdotal evidence to support a 'life after decapitation' or traumatic brain injury.
I guess you have to take into consideration - hyperventilation and over oxygenation of the blood flow to the brain (not to mention massive amounts of adrenaline if you know what's coming). But you have to factor in (in the case of decapitation) the shock consequences to the central nervous system with the loss of blood, but also loss of the fluid contained within the spinal cord and that surrounds the brain itself iirc. How much is a conciousness at work and what is purely an autonomic response is debatable.
One of the problems with pest control, often n00bs who have never seen an animal killed, or killed an animal for themselves, mistake the 'twitch' response following a shot to the brain as the animal still being alive and suffering. Whilst this is sometimes the case with a misplaced shot, most of the time it is a result of the central nervous system shorting out/trying to complete the last instruction from the 'control-room'. It's not pleasant to see - especially if you make your best effort to make a clean kill - but sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't, regardless of how accurate your shooting was or is. There's a suggestion that it can depend upon what state the animal is in before it is shot (head shot) ie. is the animal calm an unaware of any danger, therefore there's no instinctual, pre-programmed 'flight to safety' instruction ready to go in the lower brain stem. Or if the animal is already primed tor flight/escape from a potential predator - taking out the higher brain functions will not always 'put out the lights'.
A good example of both of these scenarios is shooting rabbits with a 'humane' clean shot to the head: sometimes they just slump down and there's a very small twitch then nothing, whilst other times they will somersault into the air and make violent movements with the hind and fore-legs - inspection of the carcass reveals an ideal strike to the target area (in both cases), between the bottom of the ear and the eye where they would meet if an imaginary right angle connected the two.
It's a visceral business, life and death. Something most western cultures have thoroughly dislocated themselves from. This is further not helped by the hollywood 'clean death' or death with emotional overtones but lacking the reality of it all.
I always though that to be a slaughter man, you had to have a good deal of respect for the animal you were destroying. A chap I know does this with farm animals. When the animal is collected or delivered to the knacker yard, he is very firm about everyone being out of the way so as not to stress the animal. And whilst he's not running an industrial process, he doesn't hang about and his outward demeanour is always calm and relaxed, for the animals sake as they are good at picking up stress in humans. He does his best for them and because of his experience with animals he understands how to calm them and put them at ease; this is particularly the case with horses. Having seen him do the deed on a number of occasions in the past, I don't believe for a minute that the animal had any fear or knowledge of what was coming. If there was ever a humane way to kill an animal then surely that must be it.
This and my own experience of dispatching rabbits and other small 'pest' species hints at there being a significant environmental/fear/calm/relaxed aspect to what happens to an animal when death by catastrophic brain injury occurs. It's reasonable to make the same assumptions regarding humans, seeing as the basic mechanics of the central nervous system work in the same way.