Blow to the Neck
Brian Adams
If attacking the neck (sternocleidomastoid), what is the necessary force required in a punch (blunt force trauma) to cause sufficient injury to the caroted artery vs. a knife hand strike (concentrated force) vs. spear hand technique (penetrating trauma)?
Essentially, I believe the reader is asking which would cause the most damage to this area, a punch which uses blunt force, knife-hand, which has a concentrated force. or a spear hand which uses penetrating trauma. You could possibly discuss how each of these techniques transmits power differently, the medical implications of being hit to the neck and the throat etc.
What do you think?
To address this complex question I will first touch on a few of the important factors to consider as a kind of baseline to start from. Then I will divide the targets into three sections on the neck.
- The back of the neck
- The side of the neck
- The throat
Each target addressed will be taken from my original work entitled “ The Medical Implications of Karate Blows” now re-titled “Deadly Karate Blows”, published by Inside Kung Fu magazine. In this discussion we will look at the back of the
neck only, however the factors and principals considered are the same regardless of the target and will be true for all future anatomical targets.
Essential factors considered [some of these were discussed in the article “When To Walk Talk Or Engage”]
1.Weight and size of the victim.
2.Weight and size of the perpetrator. Every 10lbs increases the potential of deadly force by x %. I do not know of any specific scientific studies on this. But I do know in terms of common sense that if a 250 pound boxer hits a 150 lb boxer it will be lethal, compared to a 150 lb boxer hitting the latter.
3.Sex of each. Women typically have smaller and less dense bones and are therefore more fragile and vulnerable to forces.
4.Age of victim. With age comes less dense bones, less joint mobility and less muscle padding.
5.Was the target moving into or away from the blow? All of the factors increase exponentially in concert with the speed of each.
6.Was the victim’s body armour tensed at the time of contact? When muscles flex they help create body armour, like a light shield.
7.Was the blow done with commitment? Was the intention to temporarily incapacitate or kill the victim? Often there is a very fine line between the two. Given the human factor, the outcome can not be guaranteed.
8.Speed, timing and follow-through are essential for the maximum results.
9.The stability of both the perpetrator and the victim at the moment of contact are extremely important. The foundation of each must be stable in order for the above principals to be lethal and somewhat predictable.
10. Is the blow delivered by a competent Karateka? The trained karateka equals what I call the big bang, which is all of the positive principals working in harmony.
11. The actual blow could be of several categories. a. Blunt [wide] b. Small point focus c. Thrusting d. Snapping e. Raking f. Squeezing [ compressing ] g. Grabbing [ tearing ] h. Dead weight (as in a slap).
So, you can see from the above list that there are a lot of possibilities. They range from total failure to complete success. Unless you have precise laboratory conditions, you can only hypothesize the probable out come. And so, I have focused on the most educational and interesting possibilities.
The following is from “Deadly Karate Blows”, by Brian Adams, chapter 9. “Striking The Back Of The Neck.”
A shuto or knife hand chopping-type blow to the back of the neck is one of the easiest and simple blows to stop a committed violent attacker. There are four obvious and common results from this blow . But before we get to that I want to describe the devise we borrowed from Fuimo Demura in 1967, to time the actual event from begging to end of each technique.
The parry and contact of the counter attack was accomplished in 7/10 of a second. This includes the reaction time and the contact point combined. First a buzzer and light signalled the attacker to attack with a straight face punch. The defender then countered with an extended outward block or parry and grabbed the attackers arm and pulled it down executing a chop to the back of the neck. In this case we hit a small padded target in order to turn off the timer clock calibrated in 10's of a second. All of the techniques in the book were timed in this way. I am sorry but we cannot include the medical drawings here due to my contract with the publisher. However the book is available from “Inside Kung Fu” magazine.
Medical Implications:-
I. Muscle spasms and a WHIPLASH INJURY should be considered the minimum possible damage during this type of blow. There is also a possibility that the blow might result in permanent spinal cord shock (injury to the spinal cord-better known as a whiplash injury). Noticeable symptoms will appear immediately or at a later date. These symptoms occur in many degrees of severity, from constant neck strain (as if a muscle were pulled) and severe headaches, to pains throughout the neck area.
II. A broken neck is the term used to specify a SEVERED SPINAL CORD. This is usually accomplished by the severing action of a fractured vertebra. Complete paralysis from the point of impact downward will result. If the cord is severed above the fifth cervical vertebra, death will be immediate. The spinal cord is very much like a multiple strand telephone cable in the sense that it is composed of many nerve strands, and these strands together make up one dense cord. The phrenic nerve is most accessible between the second and fourth vertebrae. If it is severed it will be fatal, because it controls the function of the diaphragm in breathing . Shock, loss of consciousness, coma, and death waste no time in arriving.
III. Multiple FRACTURE OF THE CERVICAL VERTEBRA with bleeding in a pinched spinal cord will cause partical to complete paralysis encompassing any or all portions of the body and limbs below the point of impact. Respiratory paralysis may be due to a compressed phrenic nerve. Death may be immediate or occur later. Inability to move the head from side to side, dizziness and headache are the minimal possibilities from a medium strength blow. A CONCUSSION may exist due to the transmission of shock waves through the brain stem into the brain. Shock [caused by too much stress on the nervous system] may by itself cause death. This is sometimes referred to as a violent interruption of the body's homostatic balance.
