Often in movies and such when a person is struck in the heart they drop like a sack of potatoes. In real life if someone were to shoot you in the heart how long would you be able to function normally?
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Saw an old dash-cam video of that exact thing happening in a criminal justice class a decade ago. Police officer pulls over a guy with a gun, they wrestle over it and the guy shoots him in the heart. He stood up, emptied his revolver into the shooter, walks a few feet, passes out and dies.
It was maybe 40 seconds at most.
If for any reason your heart stop pumping blood, lets say an arrhythmia, your brain will stop working in an average of 6 seconds.
Thats called a syncope.
The 6 seconds are important because heart pauses for more than 3 seconds are an indication to install a pacemaker in order to prevent syncopes.
I used to have really low bloodpressure when i was a teenager, it goes so damned fast you cant believe it. Was lying in the couch watching something on the tv and wanted a snack so i just stood up, next thing i remember is waking up on the floor a few seconds later. There was a warning signal like i felt faint but i had next to zero time to react to it.
You just go from lying there in the couch relaxed to passing out on the floor in less than 2 seconds.
I sat up quick and swung my legs to the floor at the same time, i felt slightly faint just by sitting up too fast but my body was already in motion the decision to stand up had already been made and so i continued to do that until i passed out.
If you are walking and you get shot in the heart maybe you take one step more before you are out if even that.
STRICT WARNING THIS IS A VIDEO TO AN ACTUAL EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ugd6UgLlXM
When blood pressure goes to 0, the lights go out. If a shot to the heart destroys the heart, and thus blood pressure goes to 0, it’s game over. If the heart is damaged but still able to provide some blood pressure, you may have some time. Think of a small calibre round, or something other than a direct hit.
If you watch hunting videos, a heart shot with a rifle round just flips the switch and turns them off.
Handful of seconds, like, single digits handful.
This is based on my experience with arrythmia, when my heart ramps up to 200+ bpm it just shakes in place and within seconds I’m flat out on the deck waiting for death and trying to regulate my breathing and fear.
Interrupting blood flow to the brain will lead to loss of consciousness in about 4-10 seconds. Some of this will depend on whether the person is standing, sitting or laying flat, and also characteristics of the individual. The longest I have seen someone retain consciousness without a heartbeat is eighteen seconds while lying flat (am a physician).
This specific phenomenon was studies in the 1940s on prisoner “volunteers” in Minnesota.
[Experimental Arrest of Cerebral Blood Flow in Human Subjects – the Red Wing studies revisited](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848716/)
I learned this fascinating fact last year when my sister had a heart attack:
Apparently it all depends on HOW your heart stops. In cases where the failure occurs due to some surprise external factor like a blood clot, the normal rules apply: within a few seconds you pass out, and within a few minutes minutes you die, etc.
But, if the heart is about to fail and the body is able to anticipate the failure, the body will begin to store up oxygen at the base of the brain (I believe) in order to preserve the brain for up to one HOUR.
In her case, she was a school bus driver and was stationed outside a school waiting for her after school students to show up, where they found her lifeless body on the floor of the bus.
They have no idea how long she was out for, but guessed it was anywhere between 10 and 60 minutes, as the buses are required to be there 60 minutes prior to school letting out.
The paramedics were able to get her heart started, but when she arrived at the hospital, the doctors were concerned because she showed no signs of purposeful movement, usually a sign of permanent brain damage.
Within a week, her mind fully recovered.
Being shot in the heart isn’t instant death like it is sometimes in television and movies but it’s very quick. You’d have an immediate reaction with unconsciousness, brain damage and death following very quickly after. Unfortunately, I used to occasionally visit an now-defunct sub called r/watchpeopledie and you could see real examples of this kind of stuff.
Easy to prove-this has happened in sports a few times. They rarely move more than 2 steps after it happens. Google Chris Pronger heart stop or commotio cordis. He’s a hockey player
Roughly 5-10 seconds is all it takes for the brain to go unconscious with no oxygen going to it. A real life example to see how long people stay conscious in a good rear-naked choke hold. It cuts off the blood in the corotid artery rather than stopping the heart but has the same effect.
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