A Funny Thing Happened Last Weekend, or, Please Don't Ever Shoot Me in the Head

[jrandom]

So I'm oop norf over Easter, as is my wont, sanding and painting the hoose. Amazing what a coat of paint does for old weatherboards, innit?

Brother-in-law and I took half a day off on Sunday to go thin the local goat herd out. Gosh but those feckers breed, don't they? There must be twice the number running around the same hills as there was the same time last year.

A few enthusiastic bangings and boomings later, we have a freezerful of curry ingredients lined up and I'm gutting a headshot goat. When I say 'headshot', I mean a soft-nose 30-30 bullet entered just below its right ear and exited through the bridge of its nose. We're talking 'dropped like a stone' headshot. Dead as a doornail, skull blown to pieces, lights out.

I notice its tail twitching as I'm hacking it up and trying not to spill goat wee anywhere. Haven't seen that happen before with a goat, but hey, tendons and nerves and all that, right? Stuff twitches.

So the guts come on out, everything's intact, and what do you know, it's a pair of fully inflated lungs and a beating heart tucked away up front. I stand there having a 'what the fuck?' moment, call BIL over, he has his own moment. A bit of general mashing around in the chest with my Spyderco and significant arterial spurting and deflating-balloon noises later, we have a genuinely dead animal on our hands.

I think I'm going to stick with thoracic cavity shots from now on. This must be an example of why headshots are Officially Discouraged by Them Wot Know.

I have a whole new respect for the kind of weird-arse trauma situations ambos and A&E clinical staff must have to deal with. Has anyone had any experience of similar events involving an almost completely destroyed brain leaving an animal or person with fully functioning vital organs?

[MidnightMike]

So much for dead as a doornail huh?

Kinda weird really

[Finn]

Wasn't very funny for the goat. I don't have much compassion for humans, but I just can't stand animals suffering.

Same thing happened to me with a Boar except I did the peeing.

[Sniper]

Yup, there is actually a name for it. Fuck knows if I can recvall it, but I'll find out and let you know

It tends to happen when a certain part of the brain is left untouched by any force that had damaged or destroyed another part of the brain. This part runs the basic functions of the body while still leaving you dead as a door nail. Very interesting phenominan, I'll have to remember to go and look up what it was called for you.

Happened with a couple of mu bunnies this weekend that were shot in the eye.

[Hitcher]

Has anyone had any experience of similar events involving an almost completely destroyed brain leaving an animal or person with fully functioning vital organs?

You're telling the story of my life. Spooky.

[Finn]

Yup, there is actually a name for it. Fuck knows if I can recvall it, but I'll find out and let you know

It tends to happen when a certain part of the brain is left untouched by any force that had damaged or destroyed another part of the brain. This part runs the basic functions of the body while still leaving you dead as a door nail. Very interesting phenominan, I'll have to remember to go and look up what it was called for you.

Happened with a couple of mu bunnies this weekend that were shot in the eye.

Is it called MarkAuckland?

[jrandom]

Wasn't very funny for the goat. I don't have much compassion for humans, but I just can't stand animals suffering.

'Funny' as in 'fucking weird', not as in 'Billy T'.

I don't think anything recognisable as 'suffering' could have entered into the equation. In fact, I can't believe the goat had any significant cognitive functions remaining. Most of its brain had been physically removed, but somehow it'd retained enough of its CNS intact to carry on circulation and respiration.

[Sniper]

Is it called MarkAuckland?

Dont be so nice to Mark. Im sure this would be an improvement on his everyday way of thinking.

[jrandom]

Yup, there is actually a name for it... part runs the basic functions of the body while still leaving you dead as a door nail.

Yeah. That 'un.

Creeped me out well and proper. In my world, dead things are supposed to stop moving on the inside.

[MrMelon]

If the brainstem and lower parts of the brain are intact it'll keep on living! Sounds like a shot like that might've taken the top/front out but left the important bits in. They're the bits that control the autonomic fuctions like breathing, heartbeat etc.

[Sniper]

If the brainstem and lower parts of the brain are intact it'll keep on living! Sounds like a shot like that might've taken the top/front out but left the important bits in. They're the bits that control the autonomic fuctions like breathing, heartbeat etc.

Thats it, but theres still a name for it..... Dammit I should know this

[Crisis management]

Thats it, but theres still a name for it..... Dammit I should know this

Alive?

Barstewards, 10 characters..

[Sniper]

Alive?

Barstewards, 10 characters..

Smartarse, although I will bling you

[MrMelon]

Thats it, but theres still a name for it..... Dammit I should know this

Could be the Medulla Oblongata you're thinking of.. it's part of the brainstem.

[Mr Merde]

Always tried to go for neck shots, seems to drop them very quickly.

Last time out goat hunting, 5 shots, 5 kills.

All neck shots. All dropped like a stone.

By the time I got to each animal there were no signs of life.

High velocity .223, 52gn HP's. Not super accurate 1" groups at 100 yards.

Hunting partner used same rounds and a heart/lung shot and the billy ran 15 meters before dropping.


Mr