Eric's bloody nose

I assume this has been talked about. Pardon if I am beating a dead horse. Curious what others think.

How lucid was Eric after hitting his nose with the shotgun? The conventional wisdom seems to be that it changed the massacre from there on, and that he was out of it from the blood loss or pain or whatever. I don't get that sense.

For one, supposedly he told Dylan he was ok, and I guess he could be lying, but it would be a weird thing to lie about. He seems lucid to me from what I can gather from the cafeteria footage.

There seem just two aspects that call into question his lucidity. One, when talking to Bree, he still looks at her while talking to Dylan and/or tells her about his nose. Maybe he felt he needed to keep his eyes on her, or maybe he thought she was scared from the blood and not the gun and so it required an explanation.

The other is at the end of the library massacre, Eric doesn't pay much attention to Dylan's conversation with Evan, and is focused on the bombs not going off and police outside.

Since I think the second bomb was supposed to go off at 11:35, during the library massacre, I am suspicious that either of these show what is claimed. The first has Eric tell Bree she will die in the explosion anyway, and the second has Eric concerned that it's 11:35 and there's been no explosion. So, it seems to me "Eric didn't know what was going on, his nose was bleeding" is a smoke screen to avoid these points. Dylan, who was fine, screamed that the library was going to explode first thing. In my experience, the pain and blood of a hurt nose stinks, and it can result in a fight or flight response, but that's about it. It isn't like brain damage or so much blood loss that you fade out of consciousness while people are speaking to you.

If Eric didn't break his nose they would have kept going for a longer amount of time. It probably just deterred him

Did they not keep going?

cakeman wrote:

Did they not keep going?

Idk. In some documentary, not sure if it was zero hour or not, but after he broke his nose he was fatigued or something

I think him breaking his nose probably just pissed him off a bit more, he was trying to create a "cool" aesthetic, like in natural born killers, but breaking his nose on the gun contrasts that, and he may have felt possibly self conscious about it probably not but a bit. He must've had alot of adrenaline in his system, so i don't know how bad he felt it but it probably hurt quite a bit, i think it just made him angrier

I am in the camp that thinks the whole "broken nose" thing is over-rated. (Broken in quotes because how do we really know he broke it instead of just hurting it, since he blew the top of his head off)

If you look at his actions in the library prior to hitting himself in the face:
-shot at the front counter hitting Evan Todd with wood splinters
-shot out the windows at police
- killed Steven Curnow
- wounded Kacey Ruegsegger
- killed Cassie Bernall

After hitting himself in the face:
- taunted Bree; then Dylan called him over to Isaiah Shoels
- killed Shoels
- threw the explosive that Hall threw off of Dan Steepleton's leg
- jumped on/shook/and shot the book shelves
- shot Nicole Nowlen
- shot John Tomlin
- killed Kelly Fleming
- shot the already dead Lauren Townsend
- shot Jeanna Park
- shot Lisa Kreutz
- killed Daniel Mauser
- shot Corey DePooter
- shot Jennifer Doyle
- shot Austin Eubanks
- shot and threw bombs down science hall
- shot and threw bombs in cafeteria

That's a heck of a lot of destruction for someone dazed by a broken nose.

Well I'm not very interested in somebody's interpretation as seen in a documentary, but your own interpretation of the facts. I think I'm with thelmar here.

Also, as for whether the nose ruined his aesthetic or not, I think it probably helped his aesthetic. People said it made him look a vampire eating blood. Dylan and him laughed about it. Most of all, I am sure he was aware it made him look like Doomguy's status-bar-face.

cakeman wrote:

Well I'm not very interested in somebody's interpretation as seen in a documentary, but your own interpretation of the facts. I think I'm with thelmar here.

Also, as for whether the nose ruined his aesthetic or not, I think it probably helped his aesthetic. People said it made him look a vampire eating blood. Dylan and him laughed about it. Most of all, I am sure he was aware it made him look like Doomguy's status-bar-face.

Yeah, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] convinced me too. And it's true that, as stupid as it is, I think many people think a bloody nose looks cool or impressive, including myself. I don't know why but I love to watch my face when I've got a bloody nose, I find it fascinating. However it may not have been "only" aesthetics for Eric because he hurt himself and so he probably felt pain, it was not only blood, and it was a kind of small failure in a way, although I don't think it was that important (and he probably didn't even care about aesthetic either).

Neah wrote:

cakeman wrote:

Well I'm not very interested in somebody's interpretation as seen in a documentary, but your own interpretation of the facts. I think I'm with thelmar here.

Also, as for whether the nose ruined his aesthetic or not, I think it probably helped his aesthetic. People said it made him look a vampire eating blood. Dylan and him laughed about it. Most of all, I am sure he was aware it made him look like Doomguy's status-bar-face.

Yeah, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] convinced me too. And it's true that, as stupid as it is, I think many people think a bloody nose looks cool or impressive, including myself. I don't know why but I love to watch my face when I've got a bloody nose, I find it fascinating. However it may not have been "only" aesthetics for Eric because he hurt himself and so he probably felt pain, it was not only blood, and it was a kind of small failure in a way, although I don't think it was that important (and he probably didn't even care about aesthetic either).

Yeah, I agree, any cool aesthetic might have been counter-balanced by the pain he felt. Then again, it wasn't that long until he was dead, and a hit to the nose usually hurts later, not immediately after, at least in my experience.

It just seems like one of those things people say to other people who know just enough about the case to impress people who know nothing, but who don't know enough to know what is a myth or not. I'm sure we've all seen a youtube comment section full of people lecturing others with the most basic-bitch Cullen takes. "Eric was the mean mastermind don't ya know, Dylan was a good boy." The same kind of thing with "Eric broke his nose and the massacre took a turn from there". The fact that Zero Hour uses that, if it did (i don't remember), being proof enough.

Worse, it seems to obscure what I feel is an important overlooked truth about the massacre, that they thought the library was exploding soon, and so there was no "plan B". That seems to get pushed aside as Eric being crazy from the broken nose, as if Dylan didn't say the same thing.

With Bree I confess it's a little weird. Bree said she thought he was talking to Dylan, yet facing her. Then again, that was right after he hit his nose, so it might be a weird time, and with the fear of getting jumped and so forth maybe he couldn't be staring at Dylan.  But at the end with Eric ignoring Dylan taunting Evan Todd, I never found that to be strange. He was just focused on the bombs and police. If anything, Dylan was weird for still taunting when the bomb should have gone off. "Yeah whatever, let's go to the commons. The bomb hasn't exploded and cops might ambush us at any moment and take us alive" seems reasonable. Also I don't recall seeing or hearing anything like that Eric had trouble standing from the blood loss. He looks pretty affable on the cafeteria footage, if anything.

It is strange to remember Eric's nose during the "roaming the halls" period. I've seen some people take that to be the explanation, with Dylan following, and Eric walking around because he's insane from the blood loss. I doubt that, but I do confess in my mind's eyes I usually forget about his nose then.

Neah wrote:

cakeman wrote:

Well I'm not very interested in somebody's interpretation as seen in a documentary, but your own interpretation of the facts. I think I'm with thelmar here.

Also, as for whether the nose ruined his aesthetic or not, I think it probably helped his aesthetic. People said it made him look a vampire eating blood. Dylan and him laughed about it. Most of all, I am sure he was aware it made him look like Doomguy's status-bar-face.

Yeah, [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] convinced me too. And it's true that, as stupid as it is, I think many people think a bloody nose looks cool or impressive, including myself. I don't know why but I love to watch my face when I've got a bloody nose, I find it fascinating. However it may not have been "only" aesthetics for Eric because he hurt himself and so he probably felt pain, it was not only blood, and it was a kind of small failure in a way, although I don't think it was that important (and he probably didn't even care about aesthetic either).

I agree with thelmar aswell, i think they put it better than i did, but when i said aesthetic, i didn't mean looks, but just the fact he broke his nose on the gun when he's in the biggest event of his life might be slightly embarrassing, and anyway my point wasn't aesthetics but instead that the breaking of the nose probably just annoyed him more due to the pain aswell as this

cakeman wrote:

It just seems like one of those things people say to other people who know just enough about the case to impress people who know nothing, but who don't know enough to know what is a myth or not.

I had read about the bloody nose about a year ago when I started learning about Columbine and I never questioned it and didn't really think about it again until today. But I am easily influenced, so if one of the Columbine experts that are on this forum is a "pro-bloody nose theory" and gives arguments, I might be convinced back. And in fact, as most things with Columbine, we can all have our theory but we cannot know for sure. But maybe adrenaline made Eric's nose almost painless.

It did seem to change the pace of the shooting but it could of been many things, the lunchroom bombs not going off, which was already a failure to their original plan, maybe seeing the blood/exploded brains of people they shot, reality hitting them like "what are we doing?", I know some of their pipe bombs were duds but not sure how many they threw if any before entering the library the first time.

It could of been pain from the nose, or just the small failure after failure about their envision of NBK getting to him.

CCTV footage of the cafeteria shows them drinking stuff from the tables and to me Eric doesn't really looked "dazed" he looks more "bummed" if that makes sense. He looks like he knows what he's doing and what's going on but just doesn't looked too hyped up about it.

I've never heard anything about the bomb supposed to go off at 11:35, nor anything about Eric's comments on it. I'm not doubting, just curious; does anyone have a source?

properground wrote:

I've never heard anything about the bomb supposed to go off at 11:35, nor anything about Eric's comments on it. I'm not doubting, just curious; does anyone have a source?

It was thanks to a conversation with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] in the thread "why enter the library". It is based on witness statements, inferences, and a picture. The bomb going off at 11:35 is an inference, not something that can be sourced. However, everything suggests they thought at least one of the bombs was still going to go off while in the library. They could not shut up about that. That is a fact if anything is. Then the picture of the bomb clearly shows the clock set to 9:35, which is probably two hours late, given that nothing to do with the massacre happened at 9. They also left the library at 11:36, and their attitude seemed to change about the bomb going off, which they were so sure about minutes before. All this combines to say they set the second bomb for 11:35.

I'll do my best to walk you through the reasoning without getting tl;dr, but I fear that's impossible.

The usual story: They were going to wait by their cars for "the bombs" to explode, but they didn't. So they went to "plan B" and went to the stairs to open fire two minutes later.

However, they also said repeatedly in the library that "the bombs" were going to make the library explode. So which is it? Did they think the bombs failed or didn't they?

"Plan B" makes no sense. No witnesses say they waited by their cars. Nothing about bombs failing would make you go to the stairs. The parking lot is terrible for glass, and terrible if people happen to run the other direction. Also by Eric's car at the south entrance there'd be very few people running out. Only a handful of tables over there. And two minutes to change course after planning and fantasizing for a year? Not likely. There's no account of any panic or anything like that.

If they knew the bombs had failed, they had a full cafeteria to shoot up rather than shoot people outside. If murdering people signaled that they knew the bombs failed, Dylan wouldn't need to check on the bombs after such a commitment to their failing. etc. Multiple books, while believing in the plan B narrative, admit there was no secondary plan, and they also say their clocks weren't precise. "setting it to 11:17" amounted to "setting it between 11:15 and 11:20". If they thought 'the bombs' would explode by, at the latest, 11:20, then opening fire at 11:19 makes perfect sense.

But there's still the issue of the library. The first thing Dylan says, according to Bree, by all accounts the most perceptive witness, is "Everybody get up! We're gonna blow this library up!"  When Eric holds Bree at gunpoint but refuses to shoot her, he justifies it to Dylan by saying she will die when the library blows up anyway. Dylan tells John Savage to run if he wants to live, meaning everybody who stays is supposed to die. They still somehow thought 'the bombs' would explode while they were in the library. Just read the witnesses.

Yet towards the end, Eric is pensive, wishing to return to the commons and check on the bombs, seemingly realizing they have failed.  Dylan tells Evan Todd he is going to let him live, not that he might not shoot him but he will die in the explosion anyway, but that he will live.

How to reconcile all this? Well, there were two bombs. Does it make sense to have two bombs and set them for the same time? Not really. The complexity of two bombs can seemingly only benefit the perpetrators if there's the complexity of different times.  Could one have been set for a time other than 11:17? Let's look at the bomb they shot at:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Oh, it's set for the 35th minute. Now that makes sense. They leave the library at 11:36. Problem solved. Dylan said it'd be the most nerve-racking fifteen minutes of his life.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thank you for the in-depth description, and that makes a lot of sense. Really kind of mind boggling.

properground wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thank you for the in-depth description, and that makes a lot of sense. Really kind of mind boggling.

Glad you see things my way. Embarrassingly for ages now I have wondered "Why did they start shooting?", not finding the orthodox tale satisfying, and I think focusing on the failure of "plan B" to explain anything can really unlock the secret of the massacre, so to speak.

Not one book tries to reconcile the contradiction of shooting because "the bombs" failed and telling everyone the library is going to explode. For a long time, unable to say one was set for a different time, I had to say they thought even though the time had past, they still thought "the bombs" would explode, which is still less silly than the usual narrative.

Even most e-sleuths favorite book on the massacre, Tim Krabbe's Wij zijn, maar wij zijn niet geschift (We are but we are not psycho), which relies more on witness accounts than the other books, fails on this score.  To his credit, he says no witness says they waited by their cars, and the plan was to shoot from the stairs. That's an improvement, and it means there's at least one "reliable source" to say they weren't shooting from the parking lot.

But even those who get that far still say they knew "the bombs" had failed. They say plan A was shooting people from the stairs with bombs, and plan B was shooting people from the stairs without bombs. But the reason to be up on the stairs is to shield yourself from the bomb blast and go either direction the victims go when they flee from the blast. Without the bombs, just go into the cafeteria and shoot hundreds of victims, instead of the two handfuls outside, with Dylan descending the staircase to shoot those fleeing into the parking lot, only then to see the bombs need checking on when the cafeteria comes into view, and shooting nobody in the cafeteria.  The whole of "plan B" should die when you realize they weren't shooting from the parking lot, and that stairs rather than parking lot isn't any better without bombs.

Books also neglect them saying they said anything about "the bombs" while in the library. Most books have them, as Zero Hour follows, telling jocks to get up at the entrance, and Eric doing most of the talking. However, by all accounts, Dylan was the talkative one, and they weren't at the entrance.

Again Krabbe is the best, but still faulty. He has them say various things they said during the massacre all at the beginning, when they are reloading their weapons - "This is our revenge" "We're gonna blow this library up", and only that once. But some like the library exploding they said multiple times, and none of them then. According to Bree, Dylan is walking between the computer tables when he tells them to stand up and that the library is going to blow up the first time, after shooting Kyle.

Anybody familiar with the case knows Jeffco engaged in something of a cover up, and that in cases with bombs the cops are often hush, not telling people e. g. how to make them. In this case there's the issue of police explaining themselves not entering as well, and an arguably unparalleled inspiration for copycats.

In the CNN/Jeffco CD, it mentions that the diversionary bomb had the possibility of being triggered by motion detection, and that this was relayed to the school. They also had the 911 call from the library, so they could hear what they were saying, at least when they screamed it.

The motion detection claim was similarly baffling, and has the same solution.

Again, there were two diversions. Makes no sense to have motion detection on both or the initial one to go off, you're just gonna pray someone walks by in time? Makes sense to have the first go off on a timer, and the second go off in the face of the responders when they trigger it with their motion.  So I feel the same applies to the car bombs. One was set for noon, and I don't know about the other one, but I strongly suspect some time other than noon. Perhaps 12:05, since that's when they committed suicide.

Second, I think it's something of a slip of the tongue, showing the bombs are why the police did not enter. Maybe they are sly and are referring to "bomb protocol" and not "hostage protocol" when they talk about protocol, because they never tried to negotiate, and it was clear from the 911 call the people lay dead outside that they had a murder spree and not a hostage situation. There are other things mentioned which suggest they thought if they opened the doors, they would trigger a bomb.  

Library witnesses also mention how confident Eric and Dylan entered the library. And it seems to me they aren't as such once they leave, and I think some of the roaming the halls had to be searching for police, since they would have been as surprised as anyone that the police weren't in the building. People speak of the propped open library emergency exit, and curse the cops for not charging. Perhaps they were confident because they were "live bait" as questionmark put it. They felt if cops rushed them, it just meant they were both dying in the explosion.

If you're still reading, these smoke screens from Jeffco and the like are why I am skeptical about the narrative of Eric's nose. Aside from Krabbe, and even he gets it wrong, people don't mention Dylan saying the library is going to explode before Eric's bloody nose. The also crucial change from "lol, you're all gonna die" to "Ok whatever Dylan you're gonna let him live, let's get to the commons the bombs aren't working" is also obscured with Eric's bloody nose. "You don't understand his nose was bleeding he had no idea what was going on" seems the subtext, despite him never needing to e. g. hold himself up or anything on the CCTV, and Dylan doing most of the talking and saying the same stuff.

I am similarly skeptical about the "hero Dave Sanders" narrative for the same reason. He didn't deserve to die of course, and he did seem to save a few lives, but his heroism is based on him telling people to run the other direction, which I think Eric and Dylan planned for from the beginning, hence they were on the stairs. Also, of course, Jeffco had his death on their hands, and needed some story to have him not die in vain.

I feel for Neil Gardner, who was mercilessly shat on as a member of the police, but who I think may well have done more to save lives than Dave. When Dave told them to run the other way, and Eric and Dylan went to enter the west entrance at the top of the stairs for just such an occasion - and had already shot Rachel and Richard first thing, the only two people blocking their path up there, it was Neil who stalled them, and getting Stephanie Munson in the ankle is all they managed from the slew of people whose path they planned on cutting off. Instead he gets cursed as the man who chased them into the building and didn't run after them, basically blaming him for the library massacre, and has to meekly say he could have saved "one or two more lives" if he could have shot Eric dead, when it's quite possible he saved the most of anyone.

I'm just curious if there was any of Eric's blood found somewhere other than in the vicinity of his suicide? I used to get bloody noses as a kid and they were pretty damn messy. There had to have been some somewhere, especially in the cup he drank out of in the cafeteria. I've always wondered this lol

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] if his nose was indeed broken then yes, I would assume his blood would be dripping pretty quickly out his nose. Years back I was in a bad snowmobile accident, we have lots of snow where I’m from, and one of the injuries I sustained was a broken nose from my face smashing off the tree. I had a helmet on but still, the impact was hard and quick and my nose start dripping blood continuously. I was amazed at how much blood was coming out. I know the injuries aren’t the same, but you get what I’m saying...