Do people die as soon as they get decapitated?

Question

Ok random i know..... but here's the thing. theoretically, if a person is decapitated, do they automatically lose conscious thought or does it take a while? I mean, i know they arent gonna stay conscious for a long time, but maybe some seconds?.... i dunno. its kindof confusing and my friend and i would like some professional opinions.....

And for the record, this question didn't just pop into my mind. Me and my friend were talking about the Saddam death sentence and how he's getting hung, which we thought seemed medieval, which led to guillotines being even more gruesome, which led to which one was worse...... which led to if you remained conscious after being decapitated.

....yes i do know being hung doesn't result in decapitation. but one thing led to another so we were wondering if after decapitation u still retained conscious thought, because that would be horrid

Answer 1

Studies were done as far back as 1794. It has been determine that some do not die instantaneously and have conscious thoughts for up to 10 seconds

Answer 2

The brain typically takes 3-5 minutes to die when deprived of oxygen (it can be considerably longer in near freezing temperatures). When the the body is decapitated the brain has it's blood (and therefore) oxygen supply suddenly cut off, but it may not immediately die. There have been reports of early French anatomists comunicating with severed human heads -yes/no questions were answered by blinking. (The heads came from criminals executed by the guillotine). There may be a great deal of pain involved for those 3-5 minutes (pain is of course experienced in the mind and it's possible all nerves are triggered). There have also been many experiments (such as those done in Russia during the 30s and 40s) in which severered animal heads were hooked up to blood dialysis machines and kept alive for several hours.

You do realize though that hanging does not cause decapitation (the neck is broken if it's done correctly, the person is asphixiated if it's done poorly)

Answer 3

Well, that is a good question and there are a few seconds of thought I am sure. However, once the brain stem is severed the thought process stops as well as the bodily functions. The person most likely did not know what hit them let alone have a chance to comprehend. I would have to say an easy painless way to die but horrific to the survivors. Good question, the only way to learn.

Answer 4

I saw an answer to similar Q in past weeks wherein it was stated that it is about 13 seconds (+/-3 seconds) the brain remains 'active' even after decapitated. Therefore, blinking of eyes may be noticed but no voice as the parts require producing sounds are missing.

Too disgusting even to imagine, but had to answer as I can see that people started to confront such questions which would deem unfit before Y!A Team.

Answer 5

Your brain is very, very sensative, just a few seconds without bloodflow and oxygen and damage has occured. A person who has been decapitated might have about a second of conscious thought after the decapitation, if that long.

Science does not have a clear answer on this because, well, its kinda hard to test if you think about it. ^_^*

Answer 6

As soon as a person is decapitated, throat and spinal cord are cut off. Once the throat is cut off, blood flew to brain will stop and the person will die due to massive hemorrhage (bleeding), and inability to breath. If that is not enough to kill a person, once the spinal cord is cut off then the connection between parts of the brain that control heart beat and breathing will be cut off and that will definitely kill the person.
Why are you asking such a question?

Answer 7

lol, i have an answer, during the french revolution they used the guillotine for thousands of aristocrats and political prisoners, during that time there was an activist who opposed this type of execution as cruel and inhumane. to support this he told a prisoner to blink his eyes as many times possible after they cut off his head, the activist didthis many times and concluded thiat you do retain awareness for a short duration the record was i think 140 eye blinks well over a minute which would be terrifying im sure

Answer 8

check out the book Stiff by Mary Roach... it actually goes into this a bit, as well as all the other crazy things people did/ still do with dead bodies. and about the definition of being dead. back in the old days in France when they used to execute people by chopping off their heads this one scientist was wondering about the same question.. i guess there were some rumors that a guy who got his head chopped off seemed to look up in response to his name a few seconds later. I don't remember all the details... your brain looses consciousness in maybe a minute or so due to oxygen starvation... but her book was really interesting (funny too, though you wouldn't expect a book about cadavers to be!)

and yeah, thinking about this stuff may be morbid to some people but i think its pretty interesting... we're all gonna die eventually anyway, why avoid thinking about it?
=)

oh yeah, another even grosser point. another scientist she talks about in the book took one monkey's brain and was able to connect it to another monkey's body so that it was still receiving oxygen... so technically it was still alive but had no body...????!!!! future - whole body transplants????? craziness.

Answer 9

Hi. Kind of gruesome, but during the French Revolution students would pick up the heads of executed persons and yell at them to open their eyes if they heard. No one ever did. I would say the impact knocked them out.

Answer 10

I thought I had an inquisitive imagination - but your question takes the cake. How would anyone on YA know the answer to this question? There is no answer here that is truthful because none of the respondents have seen it or experienced it.