I’ve never understood the concept of “instant” death in cases where, say, someone’s heart gives out or aorta gets severed, or something happens to their neck, etc. “So and so died instantly.”
What does instant mean? And how does someone go from alive to brain dead that quickly?
In: 0
Depends on your definition of “instant” and the level of technical accuracy you’re interested in. “instant death” isn’t a defined medical term, so it’s really in the eye of the beholder. Even if you stuck your head next to a nuclear bomb that then exploded, death isn’t technically INSTANT.
As far as extremely rapid death goes, typically this requires sudden and severe damage to the brain. Even if your heart suddenly stopped, the brain doesn’t start dying unless it stops getting bloodflow for 3-4 minutes. Something like a severed aeorta being referred to as “died instantly” might instead mean “Instantly was subjected to an injury virtually guaranteeing eventual death”, however again this isn’t a technical term.
Imagine standing up to quickly, that feeling you get is your brain deprived of oxygen due to low blood pressure. When you stand up the blood rushes down your body due to gravity. Now instead of the blood being displaced towards the bottom of your body blood supply is cut off by an aortic aneurysm. We know how quickly we get dizzy when we stand up but now it is escalated to a higher degree when the brain is entirely cut off from oxygenated blood. You become unconscious and loopy extremely quickly. Then inevitable death.
In reality instant death isn’t a thing, except as you noted. It’s just what people say to make the loved ones feel better. “He died instantly” = “he didn’t suffer”. But in reality it took at least a minute or two or five to die and he suffered a great deal. Sometimes it may take a little time to die but the victim is unconscious for it so “he didn’t suffer” is true.
So being alive tends to revolve around the heartbeat. There are people who are brain-dead, whether through trauma, disease, drugs, etc. that are only considered alive medically.
Once your heart stops, you typically have about… 4 ish minutes before you have brain damage and maybe up to like… 5 before brain death from lack of oxygen. Even with high quality and prompt CPR would you extend that time to about 20 minutes or so. Possibly longer if in hospital setting with high flow O2 pumped into the lungs along with the CPR. However, even with all that, the possibility of damage remains.
If the Aorta tears, you have a severe heart attack, or other injury which causes a lack of blood, you simply can’t supply oxygen or energy to your muscles. You lose consciousness when you lose about 25-40% of your total blood volume. Your brain then starves of oxygen because it is constantly operating. It is VERYA energy intensive to operate. Thus, when you lose blood, it loses energy, shuts off. The shut off causes more body systems to turn off. And you’re dead.
Pretty sure that none of this applies when a body is destroyed, like with a bomb or something. That would be pretty instantaneous.
Latest Answers