In my younger days, when I wasn't always as nice as I am now, I've been on both ends of this.

Run your hand up your neck feeling your vertebrate, then you should be able to feel the base of your skull. That's the place where I got hit when I was 13, I woke up with a concussion, mild one at that after I was knocked out.

So I believe that's where your place is.

EDIT: Spelt a simple word wrong.

[This message has been edited by Leigh (edited August 17, 2006).]
 

Once was for about 10 seconds in a game of field hockey. The guy took a golf swing and connected just above my right elbow. I was in significant pain when I came round and I still have a tiny dent above that eye.

The second time, he decided to kill a tiny fly with his cricket bat. A fly, as you may have guessed, does not have much stopping power. He swung through and connected with my chin. Next thing I knew I was on the ground. I found out five years later that I'd been out for about 30 seconds and they'd all been pooping themselves. Hardly any pain and no real side effects.

Have no idea why that's the case, but maybe it helps in an anecdotal way

(If it makes anyone feel better, I scarred the kid for life by accidentally putting the corner of a lazerquest gun through his upper lip.)
 

http://kidshealth.org/kid/ill_injure/aches/concussion.html

This one's a little more specific.

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~cahr/headfall.html

And maybe one more, just for fun:

http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/articles/scni18a2.htm

I don't know that it's really possible to knock someone out without causing a little bit of brain damage. I mean, that's how they get knocked out. I guess you're really asking WHERE to hit someone, and I don't know the answer to that question. Like stated above, the temple can be deadly. The object of impact will also affect it. Say, a fist to the head, versus a hammer. A punch will just jostle the jiggly bits, while a hammer, well, it'll jostle and crunch. Not so sure about a dagger handle, but I would imagine it could produce either effect, depending on how hard it was swung.
 

I played football and one of our running backs thought he would emulate one of his fav's. He deflated some air out his helmet and subsequently got into a head to head tackle. The result was a 2nd degree concussion, loss of memory and regression to child like state. He could not see anything out of right eye for about a day...

 

She drops to the floor, and I was convinced as a reader that it was plausible.

[This message has been edited by rcorporon (edited August 18, 2006).]
 

Do not attempt to knock someone unconscious with a single blow unless you are willing to risk having that person remain conscious and pissed or risk killing said person.

If you must knock someone unconscious but do not want to take a significant risk of killing, then you should use a cloth soaked in ether or something. This still takes skill, but it is possible to monitor the vitals and consciousness of your target, so it can be reliable in the right hands. A blow, no matter how it is delivered, cannot accomplish this.
 

Hitting too hard on the back of the head may cause blindness; the vision center of the brain is in back, in the occipital area. That indentation you can feel as you run your fingers up your neck, to the base of the skull, is where your spinal cord enters the brain (obviously), so being struck there too hard can paralyze or kill.

Striking someone "behind the ear" can kill as well; it's the mastoid process, and is very sensitive. Press on yours a bit, and you can feel it.

The skull under one's forehead is the strongest part of the whole structure, which makes sense really, being the part of the skull that may slam into things accidentally (like when swinging through trees?) Maybe that's why a good portion of "higher" thinking resides in the frontal lobes underneath, I don't know.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I'd want to be struck into unconsciousness via any portion of my brain. I often wonder how in some TV shows, when one of the main characters gets knocked out on a regular basis, he or she doesn't develop permanent brain damage.

"Better to have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy." -- WC Fields
 

I suppose that's what made the "set your phasers on stun" from Star Trek so useful a plot device. They'd be reliable. (I suppose the Vulcan Neck Pinch would be, too.)
 

It helps if you're as strong and dextrous as a Vulcan, at least compared to your target. You should practice on someone you're not afraid of killing or badly injuring, because it's easy to screw up and crush the wind-pipe, break the collarbone, or cause brain damage. I'd just go with a head-butt myself, but I can't see many situations where I'd want to knock someone out without taking any risk of killing.

A good stun weapon will definitely incapacitate with minimal risk of killing. That assumes that you have such a device on you. But currently available models stun, they don't necessarily produce unconsciousness or memory loss. Just in case that's important.
 

Thanks all!
 

And hey! No brain damage! Win-win, isn't it?
 

Some people can be killed by driving their septum into their frontal lobe...okay, that would kill anyone. But not all humans have a septum that could be disloged intact and driven back into the brain with a single blow from a normal human. Just like you can kill anyone by breaking their neck, but that's easier said than done.
 

Also, anyone else worried about how much Survivor knows about this topic?
 

Unfortunately, self-defense is not one of them...I know a little, but probably not enough to actually do it...
 

"...the carotid baroceptors (the things that control blood pressure) are located right below the angle of the jaw. Hitting one of them will cause paroxysms of the heart and could lead to rapid unconsciousness or fibrillation."

Some people have tougher jaws. Some have the proverbial "glass jaw"--one good punch and they're out.

But keep in mind, some people get knocked out cold, while other recover within seconds.

Have fun, don't try this at home kids.
 

1: I was whacked in the face with an iron bar that snapped the septum leaving it floating free, it also opened the nasal cavity so that blood bubbled from a hole near where the nose meets the brow. It did not kill nor knock me out but left me black-eyed and bandaged. (This was the state I was in when I met my wife... hmmm).

2: Another was a severe whack on the forehead when I collided at speed with a basement mooring. The most disturbing thing was that I could not control my eyes, they were shuddering. It was awful. I was totally useless but never lost consciousness.

PS: A friend of mine used to wear his baseball cap under his hard-hat... I don't know why. Anyway, one day a plank fell and hit him on the head, not very hard but a definite whack. Soon blood started pouring out from under his hard-hat. The blow had caused the metal button on the top of the cap to pierce his scalp in a perfect crescent. It was cool.

PPS: I did not contribute much to the discussion but it certainly was cathartic... thanks

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 21, 2006).]
 

Think of boxing again. The big fat gloves prolong the fight because the surface area of the impact is spread out and cushioned. In the old bare knuckle days a bout rarely lasted more than 3-4 rounds, and usually ended by the first two, because the surface area of the impact was smaller so the damage was more localized and there was less cushion. Now think of a pistol or dagger butt. Relatively same amount of force, but applied in the right place can cause a greater jarring of the brain to render subject unconscious much easier than a fist.

Knocking someone out in this way is called a concussion. These are commonly caused by blows to the side of the head. The temples are the main weak point, followed by the side of te skull's peak and just above the temples.

The junction between the top most vertebrae and skull are a weak point on the human body so hitting someone there will cause it as well. There are also major nerves there that when pinched will do the job. That also makes it a very dangerous place to hit, and could easily paralyse of kill someone if too much force is applied.

Another is an upper cut under the jaw (this is why you see boxers with vicious uppercuts win so much). There is a nerve weakpoint above the jawbone that can temporarily stop motor function.

The nose and temples are other weak spots. The temples are the softest place on the skull, and the nose is just weak.

Any overload to the nervous system will cause unconsciousness as well, though more difficult to do. Thus a sufficiently hard kick to the male genitalia can render man unconscious.

I'm sure there are more nervous weakpoints that experts know, but those are the basics.

Jammrock
 

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 22, 2006).]
 

Other knock out blows, if you can catch someone off guard, is under the ribs cage. A strong enough hit will push up the diaphram and shoot all the air out of the lungs, rendering the opponent temporarily unable to respond to attack.

@Survivor: A lot of that depends on weight and strength advantage. If a 300 pounder who is more muscle than fat lays a heavy blow on a 150-200 pounder, it's not going to matter how much muscle tension they can muster, they're going to take damage and possibly go down.

Secondly, bare knuckle fighters don't hit the thick parts of the skull. They aim for the weak points, such as the jawbone, mouth, nose, side of the face (knuckles connect on the cheeckbone), and ear, where a bare knuckle punch can inflict serious damage. All head blows, if land correctly, are done with the pointer and middle finger knuckles doing the majority of the damage. Those knuckles are a strong point on the hand, have a small surface area and provide little padding for the blow, thus inflict the maximum damage to the opponent while causing relatively small damage to the attacker.

Aren't conversations like this fun
 

I have to reiterate the points about boxing. A three hundred pound fighter wearing gloves might well be able to knock a smaller opponent across the room with a body blow, but the actual damage will not be what it could have been without gloves. On the other hand, that same blow delivered against the head will be far more effective with gloves. The relative strength of your knuckles to the target's "weak points" on the head is a huge variable, a bigger variable than relative body mass. It's also a lot more difficult to gauge accurately prior to attempting a blow. Smart bare knuckle fighters don't aim for the head at all, the hard impacts you can deliver with your knuckles are far more effective against softer and more accessible targets on the body. Aiming blows at the head is only advantageous when you're wearing gloves or using a weapon.

This has become a concern in recent years, since it has become apparent that boxing gloves--originally introduced with the idea of making fights safer--dramatically increase the risk of long-term brain damage from even a single bout. More (and far harder) blows to the head, fewer fights decided by injury to the arms and chest, a much greater reliance on knock-outs. All play their part, and all are a direct result of using gloves. If you have the opportunity to get into a fight, try to insist on a bare-knuckle fight. And don't aim for the head except with the heel or palm of your hand. I'd restrict head blows to kicking, myself. But that's a different matter.
 

I boxed at Notre Dame; we studied the causes of knock-out a bit (so as to more reliably cause them). Blows--especially a punch to the jaw--cause unconciousness by forcing the skull to rotate faster than the brain. The brain slams into the wall of the skull, and then it's nighty-night time.

Survivor is right about the gloves, too. They make fights more brutal, not less. And a couple of exceptionally heavy hitters I know used to pack eggcrate foam in their gloves to keep from breaking their hands. There just isn't any way to hit someone in the head without hurting yourself. Strikes to the nose and mouth might leave you with skinned knuckles if you're lucky; solid strikes anywhere else are likely to leave you with a fracture. Sometimes the injuries can be worse (I once saw a guy hit another guy in the face at a party. The victim was knocked out cold. The aggressor had three broken bones and four of the victim's teeth stuck inside of his hand--one of which severed a tendon).

[This message has been edited by J (edited August 24, 2006).]
 

"What are you staring at?" Hideously Disfigured Character snapped.

"N-nothing," the bellhop stammered. "But...but, sir, your eye..."

"What about my eye?" HDC snarled.

"It's...it's sliding down your cheek, sir. And I think you lost your big toe in our lobby."

Nothing says SC discomfort like a disfigured MC with a chip on his shoulder! Sorry, I have a very strange mind. Eventually I suppose I'll need to check into that.
 

Zero, I like the rag with ether - or some more modern anastheic(sp).

BTW, why don't the airbags ever deploy in movies where the car keeps going and going and going crash after crash after crash?

[This message has been edited by Wayne (edited August 26, 2006).]
 

We watched this car chase on tv (normally not my thing, but part of it went right by my house and after seeeing them all speed by me, I wanted to know how it ended) and the guy really abused his car. While we were watching, he hit 2 cars and the news said he had already hit several before. Eventually (after the car tires were blown out and he rammed another car) he drove off the freeway, not realizing that the ravine was full of water and then finally got stuck. Airbag never deployed. How the car was still moving at that point was a mystery to us, but it was real- no effects.
 

quote:

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In the old bare knuckle days a bout rarely lasted more than 3-4 rounds, and usually ended by the first two, because the surface area of the impact was smaller so the damage was more localized and there was less cushion.

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Not completely true. It wasn't strange to see fights ranging from sixty to one hundred rounds in bare knuckle boxing's height. John L. Sullivan himself had fights lasting into the 75th round. They pretty much fought until they couldn't move. I doubt they aimed for the head much, since doing so would likely cause you to break or otherwise injure your hand in a bare knuckle fight, which would severely hamper your ability to continue beating your opponent savagely.
 

A similar principle was behind the invention of modern fencing. When you deal with bladed weapons, caution and finesse beat raw power pretty consistently. If the popular method of dueling involved clubs, fencing would be a very different sport.

As for airbags, they can fail to deploy for a lot of different reasons.
 

"What I need is a believable, realistic, actual way of knocking a person out in one blow without causing them any irrepairable harm or amnesia"

There were several comments about using a rag with ether, chloroform or a more modern anesthetic, and it seems to me that Zero liked the idea. Without adequate experience in boxing or martial arts, in my humble opinion, using an anesthetic agent is actually the best truly reliable way of making someone unconscious. However, as far as "irrepairable harm or amnesia" goes, there are no guarantees.

Anyway, Zero, if you are thinking of going with something like this, in order to make it believable you'll have to create a situation for your character where he/she is capable of obtaining the ether or chloroform in the first place. (Since they're not sold at most pharmacies. As for more modern anesthetics, some of the newer ones evaporate too quickly to be reliable on a rag.

Good luck with your story!
 

I don't understand why someone with a rag pressed to their face wouldn't thrash and make a racket.
 

The technique is of certain importance, of equal importance, however, is the attacker 's mindset. He has to attack without reservation and with extreme aggression. To do otherwise, or with hesitation, is to risk failing.

May seem obvious.

Like others have mentioned, there are no guarantees in such situations. However there are opportunities that you either recognise or you don't, that you have the skills to exploit or you don't. The skills and mindset of the attacker are what determines 'how' a situation like this is 'allowed' to develop.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 28, 2006).]
 

Try this thought experiment. Next time your are out at a mall or on the sidewalk, look at the person in front of you and convince yourself that you are going to punch them in the back of their head as hard as you can. Don't just tell yourself that--make yourself believe it. Make a fist. Clench your fist hard. Increase your pace to close on them. In your mind, keep telling yourself that you will strike as soon as you're close enough. Tense your arm. Imagine the impact. Even draw your fist back a little bit. Obviously, don't actually hit any strangers.

Unless you've spent more than you're fair share of time hitting people, I'll bet you'll be surprised at how internal resistance you feel--how much your subconscious and even your body resists you.
 

quote:

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Next time your are out at a mall or on the sidewalk, look at the person in front of you and convince yourself that you are going to punch them in the back of their head as hard as you can. Don't just tell yourself that--make yourself believe it. Make a fist. Clench your fist hard. Increase your pace to close on them. In your mind, keep telling yourself that you will strike as soon as you're close enough. Tense your arm. Imagine the impact. Even draw your fist back a little bit. Obviously, don't actually hit any strangers.

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Well, you had me with your salesmanship up until that last line. Omit it and then we've got something.
 

Non-lethal doses of tranquilizer introduced through intramuscular or subcutaneous injection (the maximum level of precision possible for a dart) will take at least a minute or more to produce unconsciousness. Short of some kind of breakthrough new class of drugs or ultra precise delivery (best bet, a mini-dart in the carotid arteries), there isn't any way that would work fast enough.

As for being committed to actually attacking your target, that's pretty much a given.
 

Sneaking up with ether or chlorophorm won't work. Both take minutes to take effect when used safely. If used unsafely then you don't really care about not killing the target.

quote:

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a lungful of ether

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Good luck with that. Ether burns mucous membranes around the mouth and nose. Concentrated vapour will at the least cause severe irritation to the nose, throat and lungs and at worst will kill the target. At too high a concentration it is an asphyxiant.

BTW regardless of whether a wad of cloth muffles your yells, you can still stamp, struggle, knock things over, press alert buttons, smash stuff and generally thrash around. Not to mention draw your pistol.

Chloroform is no faster than ether BTW. It replaced ether simply because it is LESS flammable than ether but it is still unsafe to cauterise wounds when using either.

Both have a distinctive — can't sneak up on a trained guard — smell. And both evaporate too fast for you to apply to a cloth at a safe distance and then sneak up.

Unless you want your MC to be subject to the effects of contact with these chemicals, he will have to wear protective items such as gloves and mask at the least. Chloroform permeates the skin and causes irritation, it especially irritates the eyes.

ZERO, I think you will have to understand that there is no way to do what you describe without real risk to the target. Perhaps invent a new liquid that will do the job the way you want it too or just kill the target without angst.

Despite being popular in movies and stuff, the ether over the mouth thing is bunkum.

PS: Link to chlorophorm msds. Page 2 is a treat.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 30, 2006).]
 

Extreme aggression is counterproductive in attempting a controlled attack. Committed is the right word. If you're a person who can't attack without driving yourself into a bloodthirsty frenzy, then your chances of carrying out a covert attack are nil no matter what method you use.

Ether does have a distinct smell, and a low molecular weight with high permeability. That can be overcome if you use a syringe or similar device to soak the cloth immediately before application (and while the target is exhaling, as per earlier instructions on the subject). You can also create a more sophisticated delivery system that is more like a glove/mask hybrid, even one where the ether will be injected into the mask only when you apply pressure. I think that's a bit...overinvolved. Specialized tools are a necessary risk point in any covert operation, over-specialized tools increase that risk without providing enough compensating benefit.

The point that chloroform will not work as popularly advertised is taken. I don't recommend it.
 

quote:

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It is immediately disabling.

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Can you point me to somewhere that will confirm that? Not just anecdotal but real information? It's one thing to say it but another thing to produce evidence for it. In fact everything I've read says otherwise.

This quote is from: (upper case is in original, bolds are mine)

ON THE INHALATION OF THE VAPOUR OF ETHER IN SURGICAL OPERATIONS:CONTAINING A DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIOUS STAGES OF ETHERIZATION, AND A STATEMENT OF THE RESULT OF NEARLY EIGHTY OPERATIONS IN WHICH ETHER HAS BEEN EMPLOYED IN ST. GEORGE'S AND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITALS.
BY JOHN SNOW, M.D. UNIV. LOND.

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL MEDICAL AND CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY,
LECTURER ON FORENSIC MEDICINE.

LONDON: JOHN CHURCHILL, PRINCES STREET, SOHO.
1847.

quote:

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In the first degree of etherization I shall include the various changes of feeling that a person may experience, whilst he still retains a correct consciousness of where he is, and what is occurring around him, and a capacity to direct his voluntary movements. In what I call the second degree, mental functions may be exercised, and voluntary actions performed, but in a disordered manner. In the third degree, there is no evidence of any mental function being exercised, and consequently no voluntary motions occur; but muscular contractions, in addition to those concerned in respiration, may sometimes take place as the effect of the ether, or of external impressions.In the fourth degree, no movements are seen except those of respiration, and they are incapable of being influenced by external impressions. In the fifth degree, (not witnessed in the human being), the respiratory movements are more or less paralysed, and become difficult, feeble, or irregular.

If a middle-aged man, of about the average size, is supplied with air mixed with vapour of ether, in the proportion of 45 per cent. vapour to 55 per cent. air, and breathes it easily and without obstruction, he usually consumes about two drachms of ether per minute. It is not all absorbed, for a part is expired after passing no farther than the trachea. At the end of the first minute he is usually in the first degree of etherization; of the second minute, in the second degree; of the third minute, in the third degree; and at the end of four minutes, having inhaled an ounce of ether, in the fourth degree. If the inhalation is, now discontinued, he commonly remains in this degree of etherization for one or two minutes, passes gradually back into the third degree, which lasts for three or four minutes, at the end of which time he is in the second degree, which lasts about five minutes, to give place to a feeling of intoxication and exhilaration, which lasts for ten or fifteen minutes or longer before it entirely subsides.

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Is this too much to quote here? The url is here.

You have to inhale something like an ounce of ether. How are you going to get someone to do that in one inhalation? Also, if you can manage to apply enough ether to immediately progress a person to the fourth stage, how will you ensure they do not immediately progress to the fifth stage? The stage at which, we now know, death is likely to occur? Just saying, 'well you gotta be properly trained' does not work when the chemical probably doesn't work in desired way in the first place.

PS: SNOPES website (debunking urban legends) comments on a rumour about thieves using ether to knockout people in carparks:

quote:

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No, the scenario described above isn't a real danger. No one has reported having been robbed in this manner, save for one woman in 1999 whose claim was suspect (for reasons we discuss below). This legend doesn't even really describe a plausible scenario because, despite what books and TV shows may depict, rendering a person unconscious from a mere sniff or two of some substance is not easy to do. Ether is nasty, volatile stuff that requires a great deal more than a few brief inhalations to knock a person out. In fact, it's hard to think of any substance that could produce the instant unconsciousness described here.

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and this comment:

quote:

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As Dr. Matthew Barnhill, a toxicologist with the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences noted, it's difficult to imagine what substance could have been used to cause someone to pass out so quickly from a single sniff. Any drug or chemical that could immediately knock a victim out merely through his inhaling it (rather than ingesting or injecting it) would have to be quite potent indeed.

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You may be interested in taking a look at Wikipedia: Fictional applications of real materials and look at both chloroform and ether, if you're interested.

Still looking, trying to discover ANYTHING that indicates the ether thing is plausible. So far it is not looking good. Unless there is some secret brand of illegal ninja ether available only from the government.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 30, 2006).]
 

If you cover the target's face with an ether soaked cloth, the ratio is more like 90-95% ether vapor to air. That first inhalation is disabling, even if you were using an inert gas the pulmonary shock of not getting any air would ensure the victim's loss of voluntary control over much of the upper body. After only a couple of inhalations, which the target cannot voluntarily control, the target will be reduced to level two. The target is also suffering a compounding effect of anoxia, which is deliberately avoided in the usual applications of anesthesia. Etherization and anoxia combine powerfully in effect, just as do some drug combinations.

Ether has an advantage over other knock-out agents because it has less long term toxicity, and it dissapates fairly rapidly. It also has an effect slope that is steeper in the range where unconsciousness is produced and more gentle where the danger of death is approached. As long as you don't keep applying it when life signs are becoming dangerously suppressed, there is very little danger of accidentally administering a fatal overdose. Once the target stops effective struggling, you allow some air to get past the cloth.

It's an important point that ether will not keep the target unconscious for very long unless it is continuously applied. And it does take skill, your usual criminal is not going to have any reason to go to the effort needed to use it effectively. But it is by no means impossible as a means of quickly and quietly knocking someone unconscious.

Arterial injection remains as a possible means of knocking out a target near-instantaneously and without much risk of permanent injury. But it takes far more skill and expertise.
 

Right now the idea that a cloth full of ether pressed over a target's face at the precise moment he draws breath so that he inhales a lungful of 90-95% percent ether vapour enough to render him instantly unconcious but not dead or dying is a baseless assertion. Most literature appears to contradict it.

Just one line from a respectable source would settle it as far as I'm concerned.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 30, 2006).]
 

Seriously, though, I want to get to the bottom of it.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited August 30, 2006).]
 

First of all a little history.

"Ether was not used as an anesthetic agent in humans until 1842, and was not publicized till 1846, when William T.G. Morton conducted the first public demonstration of general anesthesia using ether. Even after the introduction of other anesthetics, ether remained the standard general anesthetic until the early 1960s".

"Clinical Anesthesiology" by Morgan, Mikhail and Murray.

Now more to your question:

"The discovery of ether and chloroform anesthesia in the 1840's demanded certain physical characteristics of these anesthetics. They had to be liquids with apreciable but not excessive saturated vapor pressures at room temperatures. The first vaporizers often were no more than gauze that might cover the mouth and nose. Ether or chloroform dropped onto this cloth mask provided the needed anesthetizing concentration, and the amount of anesthetic required was defined by the patient's response, by a clinical estimate of the "depth" of anesthesia. Anesthesia was less science than art, and so it continued for 100 years."

"The Pharmacology of Inhaled Anesthetics" by Eger, Eisenkraft and Weiskopf.

I'm not sure this exactly answers your question concerning precisely how many breaths would a person need to take to become unconscious (my personal guess is many and it would be a very nasty and uncomfortable process), or how long would they remain unconscious. The truth is, most information we do have is pretty historical since agents like ether and chloroform have been unavailable for medical use for quite some time. I'm sure that if you tried doing a google search you'd come up with all sorts of cool facts, but I'm afraid the only place you may find the detailed breakdown of pharmacokinetics of ether or chloroform in modern literature is in medicinal chemistry textbooks.

And lastly, you mentioned a "secret brand of illegal ninja ether available only from the government", which would be able to knock a person out in one or two breaths. It's not secret and isn't illegal and is used daily in modern anesthesia. It's called sevoflurane. When used in a combination with oxygen and nitrous oxide it can make a person unconscious after literally two or three breaths. Of course the equipment used to deliver it is slightly more sophisticated than a piece of cloth.

[This message has been edited by Leila (edited August 31, 2006).]