Does beheading hurt?
Gail White, Glasgow
- I once sat with someone who had just had their leg torn off and they had absolutely no idea though there was a dull ache. I suspect the body compensates for the pain by numbing the nerve ends through shock. Anyway, how would you ever ask?
Calvin, London UK
- The act of beheading via axe was considered barbaric as the axe man would often miss the clean killing stroke. Many axe beheadings required two or even three strokes. Medieval reliqueries were filled with the dart of bone from double axe stroke killed martyrs. The invention of the guillotine was as a humane method of execution. The victim was placed with the neck in the perfect position and the blade dropped with sufficient force to remove the dandruff cleanly.
Poly, Liverpool UK
- If your head comes off in one stroke, I imagine it wouldn't be a problem as M.Burgess suggests. If, on the other hand, you are as unfortunate as the Duke of Monmouth whose headsman took 3 strokes to get the job done, you might notice a little something before oblivion hit...
Anne, Greenwcih
- A friend of mine, who is an archaeologist specialising in ancient weaponry, once performed a set of experiments using a large supply of sheep necks and several swords of various constructions. He concluded that if you're using almost any kind of broad-bladed cutting weapon (from a short-sword upwards), it only takes a single blow to sever the spinal cord. It doesn't even have to be particularly sharp to work. Some of these experiments were broadcast last year in a C4 film about a decapitated body found buried in the centre of Stonehenge. To require several blows from an axe or sword apparently requires a ludicrously high degree of incompetence on the part of the executioner, and reliable records of multiple-blow beheadings are very few and far between.
Hugo Mills, Southampton
- Surely it depends entirely on how far the head has to drop onto the floor - the further the drop the greater the pain on impactI would have thought!
Graeme, Stoke, England
- Medically, the cutting of the jugular vien will result in conciousness of about 4 seconds only. After that, the unconcious victim will or should not feel any pain. This however could differ should the throat or esophagus be slit first, without the great immediate loss of blood (which causes the unconsciousness). As soon as the blade would hit the jugular, which is in close proximity to the esophagus, unconsciousness would set in. There would be however in my estimation acute and severe pain during the first cut of the throat or jugular, but not much after that.
Ray, Ontario Canada
- Probably would hurt, only for a few seconds though. The blunt force from an axe would render you unconscious. A guillotine, however, would not knock you unconscious if the blade was sharp. You would be in immense pain for an average of 40 seconds.
Kris Johnson, Pottstown, PA, US
- Immense pain for an average of 40 seconds? Get real act like you know!! I think if it were a guilloteen it would be lights out. No oxygen to the brain you woul cease to function. I have read many accounts and that beheadings were really few and far between seeing that is was reserved for people of noble birth. That's in England of course. So to find an experienced headsman that has done it quite often was pretty hard. Most of them doubled as hangmen. Henry the 8th hired an experienced swordsman to dispatch Anne Boleyn because axe beheadings tended to be botched. So yes if you had your necked hacked at for two or three strokes I'm sure it would be quite painful.
Jaux Deal, Kelso USA
- This question has plagued my mind, science aside I would like to tell you an experience of mine; take from it what you will. I had a dream recently in which I was fully beheaded, although I understand it wasn't real I think the brain (to some extent) has the ability to understand the way pain like that would be received, to fully remove the head has a mixture of implications, but the most prominent thing I felt (again let me say I think my body could guess what the true feelings would be) it was numbness, shock and tingling, there was no intense pain, only heavy numbness which made me feel as though my disembodied head weighed a tonne, what's funny is although there was no intense feeling of pain in the severed area of neck, I could feel my face touch the ground as it rolled along the surface of the floor, so I'm guessing science aside we would just be numb for the slight period of time until death, it has been proven that people live for up to a minute after execution, this was just a dream and that is just my opinion, do you think our bodies can guess how the pain would be received?
Amreen, Yorkshire UK
- I have seen some videos on beheading and it seem to me indeed painful, the knife cuts open the throat and the poor person is still moving even after one minute has passed.
Tom Green , London, UK
- It's pretty much impossible to not be on the net now without at least once witnessing one of those awful beheading videos. Generation Z are becoming quickly aware that the naive assumptions of the academia are total BS. Beheading is a very painful and lucid experience complete with screams, raspy attempts of breathing through the cut windpipe, expressions of extreme agony and pain, blood and vomit lurching forth from the wound as the executioner hacks and saws away, and numerous obvious movements of the decapitated head for up to a minute after the beheading. Need I continue? Viewing it changed the way I saw things forever. Check the reaction videos on YouTube of numerous other people who also express their utter dismay at what humanity has come to.. If you have no stomach to witness the brutal truth of beheading that is all around the net, stay in your tearooms and talk about the weather, but things like this can no longer be conjectured over.
James D, Guildford UK
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