Why do some shooters end up in the hospital and other die on the scene?

I been thinking about this.
Pekka Eric Auvien he shot himself in the head but survived in the hospital for several hours. Matti sarii shot himself
in the head and did not die instantly instead he was taken to the hospital.

Dylan Klebold survived probably at a couple of minutes after shooting himself.

So the big question is why could not doctors save them if they were taken to hospital? And also why do some shooter
die instantly like Eric Harris and others survive?

Shooters who initially survived shot themselves in the temple, Pekka and Matti survived even longer because they did it with 22s. Meanwhile Eric put a shotgun in his mouth and blew his brains out. As for why doctors couldn't save them, I'm not sure.

James411 wrote:

So the big question is why could not doctors save them if they were taken to hospital?

Gunshot wounds to the head are hard to survive. Pekka and Matti probably died from excessive blood loss as doctors tried to save them.

QuestionMark wrote:

James411 wrote:

So the big question is why could not doctors save them if they were taken to hospital?

Gunshot wounds to the head are hard to survive. Pekka and Matti probably died from excessive blood loss as doctors tried to save them.

Also it took law enforcement 3 hours to reach the inside of the library so by that time I guess Klebold had died by that point.

James411 wrote:

I been thinking about this.
Pekka Eric Auvien he shot himself in the head but survived in the hospital for several hours. Matti sarii shot himself
in the head and did not die instantly instead he was taken to the hospital.

Dylan Klebold survived probably at a couple of minutes after shooting himself.  

So the big question is why could not doctors save them if they were taken to hospital? And also why do some shooter
die instantly like Eric Harris and others survive?

.22 bad choice for mass shooting and suicide. (but if they in 18-year-old hands and more old - it`s danger)

Pekka have time for death on scene, but survived. Pekka shot in the direction of policeman in 12 : 04, and soon after shot himself. He was found in 13:54.

But Matti don`t have time for death on scene. Police found him in school standing with gun in 12 : 09. And found him with injured in head in 12: 10.

It's all about caliber and shot placement. As a rule of thumb the larger the caliber the more damage it'll do to soft tissue. A study found, that of those surviving a firearm suicide attempt, 80% used a handgun, 15% a rifle, and only 5% a shotgun.However, shot placement is also extremely important. People have shot themselves in the head with a shotgun only for it to maim them while others have been shot in the head once with a .22 and been instantly killed. Typically, a bullet that that damages the spinal column where it meets the base of the skull (base of the head at the back) tends to be quickly fatal, and this is most likely achieved by aiming slightly down through the mouth, or else simply pointing the gun at the rear base of the head (however this can be tricky to pull off which is why most people shoot themselves in the temple of up through the mouth). Shots to the front of the head may simply damage the cerebral cortex which may not be as life threatening as a shot to other parts of the brain near the brainstem or back of the brain.

You would think a gun shot to head would quickly knock someone unconscious but I do not think that is true. For example Williams Atchison shot himself with a large caliber weapon orally.

According to a police officer he was still able to move his head and look at him so maybe he was conscious. And the shooting happened near 9 am but his death certificate list him as expiring at 4:25 pm I think.

Depending on the part of Dylan's brain that was hit, even if they got to him on time, he may have been unable to speak/move etc..

IIRC Patrick was shot in the head with the Tec-9 as well but lived, it wasn't as close of range as Dylan's though. He either had the gun pressed to his head or very close.

Even if a mass shooter survives a head shot with extensive brain damage, I doubt that they will be fit to stand trial.

Gunshot wounds to the head can be challenging for doctors to treat.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] It has happened before though. However, you are right in the vast majority of circumstances.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (fit to stand trial, killed 3)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] (only killed two in this case, might be fit to stand trial eventually)

James411 wrote:

You would think a gun shot to head would quickly knock someone unconscious but I do not think that is true. For example Williams Atchison shot himself with a large caliber weapon orally.

According to a police officer he was still able to move his head and look at him so maybe he was conscious.  And the shooting happened near 9 am but his death certificate list him as expiring at 4:25 pm I think.

Tbh 9mm isn't really large caliber, more like medium caliber (along with .380 and .32Acp), although it usually would kill most people if they got headshotted with it

Matti and Pekka basically used pea shooters and Dylans gun wasn't especially large calibre.

People like to relish the apparent fact that Dylan would've been painfully aware of what was going on. But think about this; a punch in the face can knock you the fuck out and you won't even be awake for the next ten minutes, so imagine a bullet. Dylan was brain dead the moment the bullet left the barrel.

I heard of some guy from Africa that shot himself in the head with a .22, but it didn't work, so he just picked up an unspecified type of rifle and just shot himself again.

Do you think doctors are really doing their best to save them?

Because some like masturbating too much to commit suicide.

This is going to be a morbid question.

But if somebody picked up a gun and shot themselves in the head, would they feel the bullet going into their brain and exiting and I guess air enter your brain or would you just go unconscious. Can you still feel pain when unconscious??

James411 wrote:

This is going to be a morbid question.

But if somebody picked up a gun and shot themselves in the head, would they feel the bullet going into their brain and exiting and I guess air enter your brain or would you just go unconscious. Can you still feel pain when unconscious??

According to this article below if you won´t even hear the 'bang' from the gun before going unconcious because it takes the brain around 150-200 milliseconds to register what is going on we are technically not living in the presents since our perfection is those 200 milliseconds delayed, even our nervous system is slow to react it reacts on I think it was 1.5 meters per seconds that is why when you stomp your toe into a piece of furniture you don´t feel it immediately but you know and might even say aloud "here comes the pain" because of the delay, sorry a bit off topic just thought it was interesting in regards of how out nervous system works also we don´t have nerves in our brains that is why doctors also can perform brain surgery on concious people it´s the tissue around the brain that has nerves.

Anyways here is the article.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

And for the main question I recently read that the people who survive handgun shots to the head usually are hit at an angle so the bullet doesn´t fully penetrate only the outer part of the brain which doctors can possibly save a person from, the times where doctors can´t do anything is as soon as the bullet goes through the middle of the brain then there are too much damage done to be repaired You could look up some brain scans of gunshot wounds to the head by handgun and see what I am talking about and obviously if the brainstem was hit it´s instant death there might not even be much blood as you might have seen in some cases because the brain stem controls stuff like breathing and heart beat so the heart stop pumping blood.

That is true sometimes pain can be delayed. I am not a doctor but I wonder if people under strong chemicals like adrenaline are also able to not feel pain as quickly.

If you wont even hear the bang, if you might not even feel yourself pull the trigger because the bullet is faster than the nervous system communicating the sense of touch I think

It's all about how you shoot yourself: through the heart, mouth, and side of head have different likelihoods of successful suicide and time it takes to die, from instant to a few minutes. For example, Nathaniel Berhow shot the side of his head (some news report speculated he was more influenced by how suicide is shown in media than by what is most lethal,) and was knocked brain-dead but lived until they pulled his plug the next day. A similar case occured in 2000, with Wikipedia saying the student "has been in a coma ever since," although it's no doubt outdated by now.

Guest wrote:

Do you think doctors are really doing their best to save them?

Yes. As much as they would hate the person they are trying to help, they can't just leave them to die just because of what the person has done.

The most horrific failed suicides are the ones where they blast the front of their faces off,.but don't cause a fatal injury , except probably from infection later on.

Hideki Tojo asked a doctor the best place to shoot himself and was told the heart, he only managed to injure himself, was captured and then executed by the USA.