More on surviving a shot to the head

[canetoad]

<snip>
But where the bullet goes is most important: the farther from the center of the brain, the greater the chance of survival. If a bullet grazes the tip of one of the lobes of the brain, the patient will probably live with proper medical treatment. If a bullet enters just one hemisphere, it's still possible to make a reasonable recovery. Someone who took a shot just to the front of the brain might suffer personality changes, like Phineas Gage, the 19th-century railroad worker who became obstinate and profane after an accident. A patient with a wound to the side of the head usually arrives at the hospital unconscious but breathing.

The gravest bullet trajectories cross from one side of the head to the other, striking the center of the brain along the way. Here lie the brain stem, the diencephalon, and other structures that together govern basic life functions such as breathing, the heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature. A bullet through the mouth, Hitler-style, can kill immediately if it strikes the brain stem.

http://www.slate.com/id/2175739/

[Poll_Blind]

1. I normally do not care to read articles like that but it is actually informative.

Thanks for posting it.

PB

[brewens]

2. Surviving is relatively certain for someone like Bill O'Reilly or

Glenn Beck. Not much chance of hitting anything vital with those two.

[uppityperson]

3. A bullet through the mouth can exit side of the head and not kill you also

It makes a mess, blood all over, people screaming, then a lifetime of disability, weird looks and guilt. As told to me by someone who did this.

[seeviewonder]

4. A neighbor I had when I was growing up

had tried to kill himself by shooting through his mouth. The bullet apparently did what you were speaking of and exited somewhere other than the head/brain. He never really had any visible deformity from what I can remember but he did speak oddly.

[pinboy3niner]

6. If the bullet strikes teeth and bone...

...another risk is that they can become secondary shrapnel, along with fragments of the bullet itself.

(Edited for typo.)

[Dappleganger]

10. My grandfather did this...

but unfortunately he didn't miss. :(

[uppityperson]

22. :(

[Edweird]

5. I think bullet type is a big factor in this as well. "Ball" vs Hyrdoshok/Golden Sabre

I can see surviving a head shot with 'ball' type ammo a lot more than I can with Hydroshoks.

[RamboLiberal]

7. I was thinking the same thing

I know it's kind of morbid but I hope the shooter was too stupid or cheap and bought ball ammo. Besides the 9mm being a smaller projectile than a 40 or 45 ball could be the reason it went through and through and hopefully left a smaller channel of damage.

Still a devastating injury. I really hope she makes a full recovery.

And I hope she can return to congress. I want the Repukes to see her and realize their hateful rhetoric has consequences.

I still remember those b*stards on the balcony waving the Gadsen Don't Tread on Me to the tea partiers in the street who in the meantime were spitting on and being vile to Democratic congress people.

[Dappleganger]

12. That part I don't understand...

pretty much everyone I'm in contact with at our range uses hydroshock for personal protection.

[RamboLiberal]

16. But sometimes the nutcases don't do their research

I took a personal protection class from a U.S. Marshal in my area who was also an exceptional shooter. He told us of cases of criminals being shot by police with 9mm in the head and surviving and not even being that seriously injured. And probably the police at the time in my area was using hollow points. They don't always expand or expand that greatly. In one case that was a famous incident in Pittsburgh the 9 only went under the scalp and basically skirted the circumference of the skull bone.

No one reporting yet what he was using. He may well have used hollow points since 6 did die.

My hope is Giffords is one of the exceptions who has a good outcome from a head wound.

[flvegan]

9. Agreed.

A Black Talon would have us discussing very unfortunate things right now. Thank God.

[RamboLiberal]

17. Black Talon was media hype

It was no better or worse than other hollow points. Winchester was just unlucky it got used in a famous shooting. Today's hollowpoints probably exceed damage Black Talon's did.

[flvegan]

18. Not from what I've read.

Which is why my clips stay stocked with Black Talons.

Thanks, though.

[RamboLiberal]

20. You'd be better off selling that 20+ year old ammo

At inflated price to someone who believes the hype and buying Winchester, Speer, Corbon or Hornady which perform as well if not better than Black Talon.

[flvegan]

21. Your concern is noted.

[Dappleganger]

23. Hornady are what I use.

The range let me test them out, the damage was unnerving.

[Very_Boring_Name]

8. They said the bullet went through her temple and exited out her forehead

So it sounds like it might have just grazed one of the lobes.

[Odin2005]

11. It would have grazed her frontal lobe.

[backscatter712]

13. I hope she doesn't have a bad personality change.

Remember what happened to Phineas Gage...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

[Very_Boring_Name]

15. wow! thats really interesting

I wonder how they would have repaired the skull back then. After the accident his brain was showing, yet in the pictures of him taken after the accident it looks like his skull has been fixed.

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. My father led a long happy life after being shot in the head in 1944 Belgium.

Shot in the forehead - no exit.

He wandered in the forest for a full day before being found by allied troops and taken to the hospital.

[Dappleganger]

24. There's a story there, care to share it?

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. Okay.

It sounds implausible, but it it's true.

During the Battle of the Bulge, he volunteered to relieve an overnight sentry who had lost a good friend the previous day. As he described the situation, it had been a relatively quiet day until late at night he looked out over the rim of his emplacement to see tanks and troops as far as the eye could see. He remembered firing one shot, being hit, then waking up alone. He vaguely remembered wandering through the woods. He remembered "Getting stuck on a tree branch. You know... the branch got stuck in my wound". :wow:

He was eventually found (at least two days later) by allied troops and evac'ed to a hospital (In France?). He remembered being awake for the surgery because the doctors wanted to be able to talk to him, and being surprised at the woodworking tools they used (brace and bit, chisel, hammer, etc).

Post-op, he woke up blind in the hospital. Severely depressed, knowing that he had a baby girl at home (my eldest sister) he contemplated suicide but was unable to because of his blindness. "Even the windows weren't an option as I was on the first floor". One morning, he woke up and could see again.

He also learned that he and one other person were the only survivors from his (Company? Battalion?)

He died in 1994 at age 71. I inherited his carpentry tools and his medals including a bronze star and purple heart. I realize now that growing up, I never aspired to be tough, because the job was already taken. The benchmark had been set too high.

Surprisingly, despite his head injury he was brilliant and also a poet with a great sense of humor. In 1985 my stepmother asked if they could vacation in Europe, he replied; "I've been there. The people weren't particularly friendly." :D

In 1980 at the height of Iran tensions, he told me that he would personally drive me to Canada if they reinstated the draft.

I would never match his toughness, but I did try to emulate his nonconformity.

[RamboLiberal]

19. Interesting info

The chance of survival for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Saturday's shooting increased significantly because of one factor: The single bullet that struck her traveled in and out of her head.

"A bullet has a lot of energy," said Dr. Marc Levison, medical director of trauma services for John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital. "It goes through the skull and if it stays, it bounces around with 100 percent of the energy. If it leaves, at least 50 percent of that energy goes out."

According to Dr. Peter Rhee, chief of trauma at the University Medical Center in Tucson, where Giffords is being treated, the congresswoman was responding to doctors' commands. Levison said that's encouraging.

-----

Kimble, who was at the hospital, said he was told that if you had to be shot, "it's the best place you can be shot . . . It didn't cross the centerline of the brain which is crucial." He said the major concern now is swelling of the brain.



Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/09/20110109gabrielle-giffords-arizona-shooting-condition.html#ixzz1AWWiY8f3

[PA Democrat]

26. One eye witness (a doctor) said the Congresswoman was shot through the temple

with the exit wound on her forehead.