Can a decapitated body walk for a few seconds?

Cainkane1

Philosopher
Cainkane1
Joined
Jul 16, 2005
Messages
9,011
Location
The great American southeast
This may belong in the paranormal section but once as a small boy I was watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie which was basically about a haunted house.

Apparently, the ghost in the house was a headless woman who had been staying with her sister when they both heard a noise. One of the sisters investigated and was decapitated by an escaped mental patient. When the other sister heard her now dead sisters footsteps she saw the body standing there with no head. This incidentally scared the heck out of my then ten-year-old self.

Is this a scientific possibility?
 
Cainkane1 said:
This may belong in the paranormal section but once as a small boy I was watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie which was basically about a haunted house.

Apparently, the ghost in the house was a headless woman who had been staying with her sister when they both heard a noise. One of the sisters investigated and was decapitated by an escaped mental patient. When the other sister heard her now dead sisters footsteps she saw the body standing there with no head. This incidentally scared the heck out of my then ten-year-old self.

Is this a scientific possibility?
Click to expand...


I don't believe so. Walking is not a reflex in humans; it's a complex pattern of movement learned in childhood and coordinated by the cerebellum, which of course is above the neck. Disconnect that, and there's not much chance of a stroll.
 
No, absolutely not. When people are shot in the head, dead, including being decapitated, the body drops to the ground instantly, all muscle tone immediately ceases.
 
Not gonna happen. Walking is a type of controlled falling. It's an active feedback process.

Cut the spinal nerves at the level of the pelvis and you fall down. Cut them higher up and you still fall down. Essentially, it's like asking what happens if I cut the wire powering my desk lamp. It doesn't matter where I cut the cord, the lamp, like your legs, is going to go "off".
 
There is some evidence the head itself can still hear and see for a few seconds after decapitation ... but the other end of the body walking? ... I agree, that's not possible.

... There's an old story repeated by ShipWrights ... where a tradesmen gets decapitated by a wire rope or cable that broke as a ship was being launched ... it whipped into his neck ... and he walks a few more steps after his head fell off ... just an old workers myth ...
 
I've long heard this rumour, that the heads are "alive" for a few moments after being cut off, or that the body can still move momentarily after death... I have to say, the only decapitations I've seen have been online (not that I'm into that sort of thing!) and I've never seen any truth to those rumours whatsoever. I call bollocks.
 
I could see how, mechanically, a ragdolling body could maybe get stumbled forward by the rolling of the ship, for one or two steps, and appear to be walking. Locked knees for a moment but otherwise limp. Like wind up toys.

Oh, but the torso would go limp. Unless it was held up by the rope somehow.

This is all very improbable, stacked on unlikely.
 
Cainkane1 said:
This may belong in the paranormal section but once as a small boy I was watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie which was basically about a haunted house.

Apparently, the ghost in the house was a headless woman who had been staying with her sister when they both heard a noise. One of the sisters investigated and was decapitated by an escaped mental patient. When the other sister heard her now dead sisters footsteps she saw the body standing there with no head. This incidentally scared the heck out of my then ten-year-old self.

Is this a scientific possibility?
Click to expand...
Apparently never butchered a chicken? They can run pretty far headless. I have seen them go at least 20-30 yards before, many times. It is so common as to be the root source of the phrase, "Running around like a chicken with its head cut off"

Never heard of it happening in a human though.
 
I have personally witnesses decapitated chicken bodies running around headless for a few seconds. It is every bit as disturbing as one might imagine. But then you get to eat them.
 
I hunt ruffed grouse, commonly called partridge. When mortally wounded, they can for a short period flop about, flutter, and sometimes even "fly" (in seemingly random directions) reflexively for very short distances and only a few seconds. In those cases where the head is cleanly shot off, there can be some flutter and flopping about, but never any reflexive actions that would be seen as flying or running.
 
Peregrinus said:
I hunt ruffed grouse, commonly called partridge. When mortally wounded, they can for a short period flop about, flutter, and sometimes even "fly" (in seemingly random directions) reflexively for very short distances and only a few seconds. In those cases where the head is cleanly shot off, there can be some flutter and flopping about, but never any reflexive actions that would be seen as flying or running.
Click to expand...

Me either. I've killed a fair number of chickens and only ever saw flopping like a seizure. Running around seems like a stretch, since a chicken uses both legs and wings when it "runs".

I'll see if I can find a video online - there ought to be at least one or two...

ETA: It seems to depend on whether the head (chicken version) is cut cleanly off or not. The spine may not be completely severed in some cases or the cut may be high enough into the "head" to leave some of the brain stem intact.
 
Last edited:
Skeptic Ginger said:
No, absolutely not. When people are shot in the head, dead, including being decapitated, the body drops to the ground instantly, all muscle tone immediately ceases.
Click to expand...

The reverse is also true, as far as I know: once the head is disconnected from the blood source, consciousness ceases immediately.
 
marplots said:
ETA: It seems to depend on whether the head (chicken version) is cut cleanly off or not. The spine may not be completely severed in some cases or the cut may be high enough into the "head" to leave some of the brain stem intact.
Click to expand...

Right. That was the case with Mike the Headless Rooster.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
Apparently never butchered a chicken? They can run pretty far headless. I have seen them go at least 20-30 yards before, many times. It is so common as to be the root source of the phrase, "Running around like a chicken with its head cut off"
Click to expand...
You should know that "running" is a rather disingenuous way of describing what chickens do after their heads are cut off.

Their feet kick uncontrollably and without coordination. Their wings flap uncontrollably and without coordination. A more accurate description would be energetic "flopping" or "flailing".

Yes, they can move a surprising distance after the beheading but "running" isn't really how they do it.

The legs can kick in alternation (appearing to be a run) and they can also kick simultaneously (appearing to be a leap). Same thing going on with the wings. For some moments during the ordeal it can look like running but this doesn't maintain itself because the whole thing is uncontrolled and uncoordinated.

There are online videos of this.
 
William Parcher said:
You should know that "running" is a rather disingenuous way of describing what chickens do after their heads are cut off.

Their feet kick uncontrollably and without coordination. Their wings flap uncontrollably and without coordination. A more accurate description would be energetic "flopping" or "flailing".

Yes, they can move a surprising distance after the beheading but "running" isn't really how they do it.

The legs can kick in alternation (appearing to be a run) and they can also kick simultaneously (appearing to be a leap). Same thing going on with the wings. For some moments during the ordeal it can look like running but this doesn't maintain itself because the whole thing is uncontrolled and uncoordinated.

There are online videos of this.
Click to expand...
Sure there are, but there are also the 1 out of 200 or so that run. The vast majority flop around as you describe, a few don't flop at all... just quiver and spasm, and of course the rare one that actually runs, and once I even saw one fly a short distance.

Oh and by the way, we didn't use an axe. We pulled the heads right off. No chances for brain stems left behind. I typically don't like watching vids you talk about. Too often there is some kid laughing. I never did care much for that. To me it was always a solemn moment when we had to butcher the chickens and rabbits. Anyone that can laugh at the killing of an animal you cared for and raised from a 1 day old chick or kit seems a bit sick to me. We had to do it because that's how we ate and paid the bills, but never something to laugh about.:( Heck, I even have such a "ol' softy" heart I would "save" earthworms from drowning in rain puddles and "relocate" them to the garden.(OR sometimes save for fishing) It's a very solemn moment most people these days have no concept about when you literally must kill your own food with your bare hands. The one good thing about it though, our chickens had a VERY good life followed by a quick sure painless end. Most the chicken you find at the market now-a-days were raised in a way that only can be described as the most incomprehensibly cruel evil torture.
 
Last edited:
William Parcher said:
You should know that "running" is a rather disingenuous way of describing what chickens do after their heads are cut off.

Their feet kick uncontrollably and without coordination. Their wings flap uncontrollably and without coordination. A more accurate description would be energetic "flopping" or "flailing".

Yes, they can move a surprising distance after the beheading but "running" isn't really how they do it.

The legs can kick in alternation (appearing to be a run) and they can also kick simultaneously (appearing to be a leap). Same thing going on with the wings. For some moments during the ordeal it can look like running but this doesn't maintain itself because the whole thing is uncontrolled and uncoordinated.

There are online videos of this.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Even on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HksE-7aYmIw If this is the sort of behavior Red Baron was describing, I'd agree that it's pretty disturbing, but not that it constitutes "walking" or "running" as usually pictured by someone who has seen a live chicken strutting around.
 
Red Baron Farms said:
Anyone that can laugh at the killing of an animal you cared for and raised from a 1 day old chick or kit seems a bit sick to me. We had to do it because that's how we ate and paid the bills, but never something to laugh about.:( Heck, I even have such a "ol' softy" heart I would "save" earthworms from drowning in rain puddles and "relocate" them to the garden.(OR sometimes save for fishing) It's a very solemn moment most people these days have no concept about when you literally must kill your own food with your bare hands. The one good thing about it though, our chickens had a VERY good life followed by a quick sure painless end. Most the chicken you find at the market now-a-days were raised in a way that only can be described as the most incomprehensibly cruel evil torture.
Click to expand...

Totally agree.
 
Gilbert Syndrome said:
Love me some chicken but I couldn't personally decapitate one of the little buggers. Yes, I know...
Click to expand...

No problem give them a self -actuated guillotine and show them 16 hours of Gilligan's Island - they'll do themselves within two three hours.
 
Argumemnon said:
The reverse is also true, as far as I know: once the head is disconnected from the blood source, consciousness ceases immediately.
Click to expand...
That may not be totally true. Guillotining happens very fast, so it would not be impossible for awareness to remain for a short time. There are accounts that may be the case.
 
wasn't there talk of mary queen of scotts head making movements after the event?
 
agree, pretty bloody, pun intended, awful.
I think i read after the third,
 
God, and part of my Halloween reading was Lovecraft's "Herbert West, Reanimator" ,where these kind of questions are a major plot point.
BTW the movies really keep only the basic concept from the Lovecraft story;everything else is changed.
 
No.

It's Hollywood fiction.

And projectiles fired from small arms won't knock down a human or blow them across the room either.
 
dudalb said:
God, and part of my Halloween reading was Lovecraft's "Herbert West, Reanimator" ,where these kind of questions are a major plot point.
BTW the movies really keep only the basic concept from the Lovecraft story;everything else is changed.
Click to expand...
I recommend Rawlik's Reanimators. An interesting reboot of the idea.
 
Blood pressure falling to zero would cause nearly instantaneous loss of consciousness. There could be reflexive movement for a time.
 
Jrrarglblarg said:
I could see how, mechanically, a ragdolling body could maybe get stumbled forward by the rolling of the ship, for one or two steps, and appear to be walking. Locked knees for a moment but otherwise limp. Like wind up toys.

Oh, but the torso would go limp. Unless it was held up by the rope somehow.

This is all very improbable, stacked on unlikely.
Click to expand...

Doesn't happen. Like I said, all muscle tone stops instantly. There is nothing to hold the body in a standing position, even for a few seconds. The body instantly completely collapses.

You can find youtube videos of people being shot in the head. You will see how they drop instantly.

As for the myth the decapitated head is alert for a few seconds, it's another myth. Remember that video death of the Iranian woman, Nada? Her eyes rolled to the side and it looked like she was looking at people around her. She wasn't. The eye movement was a coma sign.

You can hold your breath and stay conscious. But you cannot stay conscious even for a few seconds when your heart stops. The brain has no reserve energy source. It has to have a blood supply in order to be conscious.
 
autumn1971 said:
Blood pressure falling to zero would cause nearly instantaneous loss of consciousness. There could be reflexive movement for a time.
Click to expand...
If the nervous system was intact and all you lost was blood to the brain, a person can have seizures and will still have some muscle tone. But decapitating the brain, or destroying enough of it that death is instantaneous, stops all muscle function at the same time.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Doesn't happen. Like I said, all muscle tone stops instantly. There is nothing to hold the body in a standing position, even for a few seconds. The body instantly completely collapses.

You can find youtube videos of people being shot in the head. You will see how they drop instantly.

As for the myth the decapitated head is alert for a few seconds, it's another myth. Remember that video death of the Iranian woman, Nada? Her eyes rolled to the side and it looked like she was looking at people around her. She wasn't. The eye movement was a coma sign.

You can hold your breath and stay conscious. But you cannot stay conscious even for a few seconds when your heart stops. The brain has no reserve energy source. It has to have a blood supply in order to be conscious.
Click to expand...
There are YT vids of steer and camels having there throats slit for slaughter, blood is going everywhere except to the brain and they are quite conscious. Decapitation happens so very fast; it's not improbable that awareness could persist for a few seconds. Nada was not decapitated if I'm recalling the right person.
 
Last edited:
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
The nurse who answered this question claims that it's rare to not instantly lose consciousness when the heart stops, but that it can happen.
Click to expand...

There are a couple seconds the blood is still moving when the pump stops. That's logical. It also happens to be quite different from decapitation in which the blood pressure in the brain's blood vessels immediately ceases.

Here's what the nurse said:
Generally speaking, patients tend to lose consciousness instantaneously, any delay between the cardiac arrest rhythm (quite often a rhythm known as Ventricular Fibrillation) is microseconds only.

Having said that, I have resuscitated patients and defibrillated the heart, on more than one occasion, where the patient concerned had no palpable heartbeat, the monitor was displaying the characteristic disorganised trace of VF but the patient screamed in pain as we delivered the shock. On a couple of these occasions, the patients groaned as cardiac massage was taking place.
Click to expand...

She agrees with me.


Screaming and/or groaning doesn't mean consciousness, it means intact nervous system response.
 
Last edited:
Steve001 said:
There are YT vids of steer and camels having there throats slit for slaughter, blood is going everywhere except to the brain and they are quite conscious. Decapitation happens so very fast; it's not improbable that awareness could persist for a few seconds. Nada was not decapitated if I'm recalling the right person.
Click to expand...

Animals have different anatomy. Fro example, dead snakes, frogs and worms wiggle long after death. You would have to find some evidence this was true with humans.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom