Hanging how long till death

Though nobody really knows how long it takes a person to die from hanging, experts say it is probably anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. In judicial hangings, as opposed to suicides, there is significant damage to the spinal cord.

If the victims fall more than the prescribed distance, they may even pick up enough speed that the noose itself decapitates them, as happened Monday to the former Iraqi dictator's half brother Barzan Ibrahim. In rare cases, intense fear can cause the victim to die of cardiac arrest. Even when the neck is broken, Hillman says, there is still blood containing oxygen in the brain.

The brain can still function at some level until that oxygen is used up. In praxes, this means that facial movements can still occur even after the head has been severed from the body. The head of the Marie Antoinette, the guillotined French queen, famously smiled after being chopped off for precisely this reason, Hillman says. Criminals have been hanged since the Persian Empire first adopted the practice 2, years ago. His pupils were bilaterally dilated and nonreacting to light.

Upper airway reflexes were present. Patient had intermittent decerebrating movements. Immediately, his trachea was intubated orally with 8. Patient was given pancuronium and midazolam. Controlled ventilation was continued with PEEP. He was given furosemide 60 mg and morphine 6 mg IV and repeated 6 hourly. X-rays of cervical spine AP and lateral view revealed no bony injury.

His chest condition was markedly improved after 12 hours of ventilation. He regained his consciousness. After 24 hours 2 nd day he was fully conscious. Chest X-ray AP view detected no abnormality. Hanging is a very common mode of suicide particularly in young adults. Death in suicidal hanging is secondary to hypoxia and cerebral ischaemia due to compression of airway and major blood vessels of neck caused by ligature applied round the neck and the force of compression being the body weight.

The clinical features of a patient of hanging involve respiratory and central nervous system. The common respiratory signs are respiratory distress, hypoxia, pulmonary oedema etc; and signs related to CNS are like restlessness, unconsciousness, muscular rigidity, convulsions, amnesia, hemiplegia etc. Our patient had unconsciousness, muscular rigidity and decerebrating movements, respiratory distress and hypoxia at the time of admission.

He developed pulmonary oedema two hours later during controlled ventilation through endotracheal tube. Pulmonary oedema has been reported in literature following a sudden relief from upper airway obstruction. The cause of delay is not clear but it might be related to rate of onset of oedema and severity of airway obstruction.

Some workers postulate that cerebral hypoxia during hanging causes release of vasoactive substances like histamine, serotonin and kinins. These mediators along with hypoxia lead to pulmonary vasoconstriction, pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary congestion. If airway obstruction is suddenly removed there is an abrupt fall in intrapulmonary pressure, which suddenly increases the venous return and hence increases pulmonary hyperaemia. Presentation of patient with accumulated fluid in lungs may range from hyperaemia to frank pulmonary oedema through lung congestion.

Perhaps, our patient was in the state of hyperaemia in the lungs at the time of admission as he was showing hypoxia without any added sound in the chest. Later on he developed frank pulmonary oedema, it might be because of continuous process of accumulation of fluid in the lungs either under influence of vasoactive substances or damaged pulmonary capillary membrane.

Thus, any patient having hypoxia following rescue from hanging or relief from upper airway obstruction with clear chest may be considered as a case of hyperaemia and such patient may develop delayed frank pulmonary oedema during therapy. Airway obstruction and compression of blood vessels in neck causes cerebral oedema, hypoxic insult, raised intra cranial pressure ICP and neurological manifestations. The strategy of management should aim to get adequate oxygenation and cerebral perfusion.

India itself uses a method called the long-drop. Since then, people have been executed, nearly half of them by the Government of Uttar Pradesh. Until the midth century or so, the short-drop hanging was the most common method.

Once the noose was in place, the support would be kicked away and the subsequent short drop would slowly strangle the person. Specifically, the noose would squeeze on the carotid arteries that ferry blood to the brain and press down on the trachea, which brings oxygen to the lungs.

As its supply of blood drops, the brain begins to swell, so much so that at one point it presses on the top of the spinal column and pinches on the vagal nerve. This action stops the heart. By this time, the person will have been unconscious thanks to the lack of oxygen in the lungs.