12-20-2019, 12:25 PM
On Dec 19, 2019 - I asked this question to an actual brain surgeon:
You have seen the photo of JBR's skull, the blow to the head was massive but her skin was not broken. The coroner did not even realize she had been hit in the head until he opened her up - - and this part upsets me so apologize for bluntness. If she had not been very close to death at that time,- if the garrote had not been pulled tight, do you think she would have bled from her eyes, ears, nose or mouth? I think so, how could it not bleed if her heart was pumping?
This was his answer:
I think this speaks more to the intent behind your question, actually.
Even if her heart was pumping at the time, there’s no path for blood to extrude from the brain or the skull cavity through the eyes or mouth. That’s only in the movies.
The brain is contained in a thick, leathery sac called the ‘dura’ (because it’s ‘durable’ and hard to break ) and the dura also connects firmly to the inside of the skull at several points. Even if there was a lot of pressure from the heart pumping blood into the skull, it would not go through the eyes and mouth. It would have to break the dura to do that. That would require a lot of force. But it just wouldn’t have happened in this case.
Instead, what would happen is that the accumulating blood, if it didn’t leak out into the hole/crack at the top of the skull, it would start squishing the brain. The increase in pressure would start squeezing out the cerebrospinal fluid ‘csf’, the special fluid that bathes the brain on the outside, and fills the brain on the inside inside special tubes called ‘ventricles’. The csf wouldn’t come out of the eyes or mouth either because it’s stuck inside the dura. Instead, the csf fluid would get pushed downward and exit through a big hole at the bottom of the skull called the ‘foramen magnum’, travel down the spine from the top of the neck to the low back to a reservior called the ‘lumbar cistern’. That’s where you get a ‘spinal tap’ to sample your csf fluid for germs. It’s *still inside* the dura. The dura surrounds the whole length of the brain and spinal cord.
Note that they don’t call it a ‘spinal tap’ anymore. The call it a ‘lumbar puncture’ or ‘LP’. What does it puncture? It punctures the dura with a very sharp needle. What does the needle do when it punctures the dura? It sucks up a sample of csf fluid that’s inside of it.
Then they send the CSF fluid to a lab to check to see if you have meningitis, or Lyme disease, or multiple sclerosis, etc., etc.
But back to JBR: no, even if her heart was pumping you wouldn’t get an extrusion of blood from the orifices. But, you WOULD see an obvious compression of the brain and a hematoma, which they did not. And the excess pressure from that would get relieved by moving csf down the spine, to the low back.
Good question!
You have seen the photo of JBR's skull, the blow to the head was massive but her skin was not broken. The coroner did not even realize she had been hit in the head until he opened her up - - and this part upsets me so apologize for bluntness. If she had not been very close to death at that time,- if the garrote had not been pulled tight, do you think she would have bled from her eyes, ears, nose or mouth? I think so, how could it not bleed if her heart was pumping?
This was his answer:
I think this speaks more to the intent behind your question, actually.
Even if her heart was pumping at the time, there’s no path for blood to extrude from the brain or the skull cavity through the eyes or mouth. That’s only in the movies.
The brain is contained in a thick, leathery sac called the ‘dura’ (because it’s ‘durable’ and hard to break ) and the dura also connects firmly to the inside of the skull at several points. Even if there was a lot of pressure from the heart pumping blood into the skull, it would not go through the eyes and mouth. It would have to break the dura to do that. That would require a lot of force. But it just wouldn’t have happened in this case.
Instead, what would happen is that the accumulating blood, if it didn’t leak out into the hole/crack at the top of the skull, it would start squishing the brain. The increase in pressure would start squeezing out the cerebrospinal fluid ‘csf’, the special fluid that bathes the brain on the outside, and fills the brain on the inside inside special tubes called ‘ventricles’. The csf wouldn’t come out of the eyes or mouth either because it’s stuck inside the dura. Instead, the csf fluid would get pushed downward and exit through a big hole at the bottom of the skull called the ‘foramen magnum’, travel down the spine from the top of the neck to the low back to a reservior called the ‘lumbar cistern’. That’s where you get a ‘spinal tap’ to sample your csf fluid for germs. It’s *still inside* the dura. The dura surrounds the whole length of the brain and spinal cord.
Note that they don’t call it a ‘spinal tap’ anymore. The call it a ‘lumbar puncture’ or ‘LP’. What does it puncture? It punctures the dura with a very sharp needle. What does the needle do when it punctures the dura? It sucks up a sample of csf fluid that’s inside of it.
Then they send the CSF fluid to a lab to check to see if you have meningitis, or Lyme disease, or multiple sclerosis, etc., etc.
But back to JBR: no, even if her heart was pumping you wouldn’t get an extrusion of blood from the orifices. But, you WOULD see an obvious compression of the brain and a hematoma, which they did not. And the excess pressure from that would get relieved by moving csf down the spine, to the low back.
Good question!