Does this smell funny to you? |
Alright
authors, get out your pens and pencils, start your wordprocessors, and warm up
for some real wisdom that occurred to me yesterday while watching an episode of
“The Mentalist”: any blunt force trauma sufficient enough to cause
unconsciousness should produce more than just a brutal headache when the victim
awakes.
Hollywood
loves to show good guys knocking out bad guys by giving them a loving tap on
the head with a blackjack, the butt of a rifle, or a random lead pipe handy for
the occasion. This is almost always a
means of showing how good the good guys are being good guys because they’re
using less-than-lethal force to subdue the black hats. See good guys don’t kill if they don’t have
to, no matter how high the stakes. Usually,
the bad guy in question is a low-level goon while on guard, caught complete OFF
GUARD, and subjected to nothing worse than a hangover level temple-thumper a
few hours after their Big Bad Boss has been defeated.
A
blow to the head is not the brain’s nap button.
You smash a pistol butt, the pommel of a sword, or a Jack Daniels bottle
into someone’s noggin’ and not only is it lights out, you may have to buy them
a gravestone. Any blow sufficient enough
to induce unconsciousness is a sure sign of concussion. A concussion can result in more potential
danger than being surrounded by bad guys while tied to a
chair as the Big Bad
lays out his/her evil scheme. Brain
damage, and death are far more likely to occur if a single or series of blows
results in a blackout state.
Your services will no longer be necessary. |
As
my beta reading doctor friend (yeah, I have a doctor who beta reads for me, I’m
that good) told me:
If
the person regained consciousness had no deficits [vomiting, lethargy,
headache, confusion, etc.], then the prognosis is good. There can be later complications, over the
next month, mind you, and you can absolutely die from traumatic brain injury
related swelling, or a delayed bleed or a missed fracture or something.
Apparently,
there is also an increased risk of Alzheimer’s or other fun problems later in
life. Here’s a wonderful article with some great stats from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. It might have been kinder, and more
realistic, to slit the guy’s throat or garrote the goon to death. Besides, do you really want to leave an armed
goon guard, now embarrassed and angry that he/she was taken out so easily, and
with the ability to, I don’t know, sound the alarm, call the Big Bad Boss, or
sneak up behind you and give you a taste of your own medicine—a bullet in the
back of the skull?
Hey girl! Don't bash my head in. |
Well,
ok. It’s your story, so the economy of
vision, not to mention economy of characters, has to be maintained. So you may find yourself with the need to
transition a good guy to a horror-level operating table where the Big Bad can gloat over
how superior he is, and how feeble the good guy’s attempts to him thwart have
been. But if bludgeoning with a bludgeon is out, what to do? You might have a goon employ a choke
hold, cutting off blood flow to the brain to induce unconsciousness. This still has some potential complications
since you are, well, cutting off blood to the brain. It also tends to wear off sooner than blunt
force trauma. But,
it’s not nearly as debilitating or dangerous as tapping Ryan Gosling on the
back of the head with a ballpeen hammer.
Heck, even thumping him a few times in his well-chiseled abs, then
pulling a hood over his head would have the same effect, while not putting him
in the market for an eternal dirt nap.
Of course, you might hurt your fist on those abs.
Of course, you might hurt your fist on those abs.
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