How You're Gonna Die

Halfway interesting/halfway obvious report by "experts" on what it's like to die by various means.

Seems to reinforce my belief that drowning is sort of the worst way to go.

Drowning: Victims first panic and try to hold their breath, typically for 30 to 90 seconds. Survivors have reported a "tearing and burning" sensation as water enters the lungs - but it is quickly followed by a feeling of calmness and tranquility. Oxygen deprivation results in loss of consciousness, the heart stopping and brain death.

...

Fall from a height:
Survivors of great falls often report the sensation of time slowing down. A study of 100 suicide jumps from San Francisco's 246-ft-high Golden Gate Bridge found numerous cases of instantaneous death involving collapsed lungs, exploded hearts or damage to organs from broken ribs.

...

Decapitation:
Beheading can be swift and painless but consciousness is believed to continue for a short time after the spinal cord is severed. Experts have calculated that the brain might remain functioning for seven seconds. Reports from guillotine executions in France cited cases where movements of the eyes and mouth were seen for up to 30 seconds.

If you have to die -- and I imagine most of you will face that at some point -- I cannot recommend death by cobra venom highly enough.

Death due to the bite of cobra poison is a. singularly, easy and pleasant one, as deaths go. Only the nerves are attacked, practically, and the victim has no pain-- one of the great dangers of this very, poison is in fact in not knowing when the effect has worn off! Steadily the nerves are soothed to numbness, the victim feeling that he is recovering, for the nerves are being put to sleep. At:the very time when the unfortunate feels that he is out of all danger he sinks into sleep, and into death, so slowly and gradually that [those observing him often cannot tell he has died at all.]

That's from a badly fubared cached version on an article, by the way, so I had to make some guesses as to what the actual article said.

If it was good enough for Cleopatra, it's good enough for me.

posted by Ace at 04:34 PM

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