Is this possible?

Question

I am writing a story about the triangle shirtwaist factory fire. towards the end a character is driven half mad with grief and stabs himself with a hat pin. would this kill him? i want to make my story believable and accurate.

Answer 1

Very intriguing! If he stabbed himself in the heart, major artery or other vital organs he may die fairly quickly. If he didn't, he could die slowly of infection.

Answer 2

If the pin were long enough, I imagine aiming for the heart at an upward angle below the bottom of the breastbone would do it. Talk about a "broken heart."

Answer 3

yeah it would kill you if you stuck it in one of major veins on your neck, or between the ribs make a hole in one of the lungs. hitting the heart can prove to be uneffective, because the muscle itself can withstand minor damages (like injecting adrenaline straight into the heart). It would also kill if you could manage to insert the pin in your spine (between the vertebrae) to reach the spinal cord. You could also drive it through your ear to the brain. I suppose it could be done through the nose as well.

Answer 4

i dont think a hat pin would really be able to kill a person. mayb depending on where he stabs himself.

Answer 5

I agree with the above answers. You might do a little research on the dimensions of hatpins in that era to figure out if it's long enough.

Answer 6

I guess that it would depend where he stabbed himself. If he managed to get the heart, then yeah I think that it could.

Answer 7

If he stabbed a main artery and didn't do anything to stop the bleeding, then, he would bleed to death.

Answer 8

only if he's an air head.