Why do gunshots in the head kill so quickly?
In: 0
Your brain is you. The entire rest of the human body exists to support the brain. Therefore any damage to the brain essentially damages you, and since so little is known about the brain and how it works (compared to the rest of the organs in the human body, at least), brain damage is *serious* business.
Bullets don’t just poke a hole in people. Once they enter the human body, a couple of different things happen.
One, the amount of kinetic energy combined with the spin of the bullet creates a kind of a shockwave that can cause serious damage to soft tissue (i.e., not bones) without the bullet actually touching it. The more energy transfer involved, the more trauma inflicted on the surrounding tissue. That “fine” if the surrounding tissue is body fat, muscle, *some* organs, etc., because those can be treated and/or repaired, and will (usually) heal over time. Your brain, on the other hand, not so much.
Thing number two that happens is that bullets don’t exactly stay stable once the encounter something. Even a full metal jacket round can end up tumbling through the body once it hits, taking a path through tissue that can be unexpected. Some bullets actually shatter under the stress of this tumbling. Then soft points and hollow point bullets actually expand and look like a mushroom, transferring that kinetic energy over a wider area. All of these cause a *hell* of a lot more damage and a simple hole in the body. And the more damage a brain receives, the more likely its function will be impaired resulting in death.
And there’s one more thing to consider: bullets that hit bone tend to break said bone, if not outright shattering them (especially at the impact point). That shattered bone causes even more damage to the surrounding tissue (knew a guy that took a hit in the left arm from an AK-47 in Iraq and they found bone shards in his right lung). Taking a shot to the dome means the bullet hits the skull, and if it penetrates the skull it’s taking a portion of the skull along with it into the brain.
All of this means that taking a bullet to the brain pan means you have kinetic energy waves travelling through the soft-tissue, bullets tumbling through the surrounding tissue, and bone fragments going every which way though the skull as a whole. And sense your brain controls all of your autonomic functions, you lose the ability to control your body pretty quickly. Couple that with all of the blood your brain needs pouring out of the new ventilation system in your cranium, and it doesn’t take long for your brain to die. Hell, hit the right spot (affectionately referred to as the “light switch”) and the recipient of the new blowhole will never even know he/she has been shot. They’ll just immediately cease to exist.
Latest Answers