Stuff You Should Know - Where's the best place on your body to get shot?

Episode Date: December 16, 2008

Although no one wakes up in the morning hoping for a gunfight, we all know life can be unpredictable. So check out this HowStuffWorks podcast and learn the best place to take a bullet if you get shot. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast Stuff You Should Know. That's what it's called. How's it going, Chuck? It's going great, Josh. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. Good. Before we get started, Josh,

I'd like to say a couple of words, if I may. Okay. This is, we say this, Stuff You Should Know is just named to iTunes 2008, Best of 2008 podcast. And we say this as a thank you to the fans, A, and as a thank you to our producer, Jerry. Yes. This is not a pat on our back. Our producer, Jerry, works tirelessly to edit, to provide the music, makes the sound quality. Everyone talks about how great our sound quality is. Yeah. Everything we say is wrong. Jerry has to go back, figure out the right answer, and edit it so that it sounds like we know what we're talking about, essentially. So Jerry's work and the fans that listen is a big, big reason why we were named Best of 2008,

something we're really proud of. So we just want to say thank you and let's get on with it. Yeah, let's. How about gun death? How about that first segue? Well, Jerry's crying now. So I think gun death is a good way to go. Okay. All right. So, wow, that was really something. That was great. I know. I'm for Clint. Are you? Yeah. Well, I've never seen you get choked up. Take a breath. All right. So gun death. Gun death. Yes. Basically, Chuck, there was a new study that was released,

though, I think about four hours ago. Really? Yeah, less than that, actually. Wow. And it found that states that have lax handgun laws, there's actually 10 of them that have really lax handgun laws. I believe George is one of them. Sweet. We're one of those states you can come down and buy like 50 guns, if you want, and then take them to New York and sell them. Right. Yeah. Well, states like ours actually have a higher instance per capita of handgun-related deaths. That's actually 70% more. So that's not altogether shocking?

No, it's not. And what's even less shocking is that these statistics are found in the U.S. because you can make a pretty good case that the U.S. is a gun culture. Yeah. You want some numbers? Yeah. I'm flying in with the stats as we speak. Yeah. United States, in 2007, there were a total of 270 million guns. Yes. And that is 90 guns for every 100 people. Right. And just to put that in perspective, India, which is kind of surprising, actually, the second most armed nation. Well, think about this. India also has like a billion people living there.

Yeah. We have a quarter of the population have been India. Right. So having said that, India has 45 million compared to our 270. And they're second in the most heavily armed nation on the planet. So there you go. Yeah. So that's a lot of guns. Yeah, we like our guns. That's a lot of guns for people. You know, I spent some time when I was in high school, I lived in Kennesaw, Georgia. And Kennesaw actually has a law on the books that says you have to own a gun if you live in Kennesaw. That was probably passed right around the time you were growing up there, right?

I think it was passed a few years before. Okay. Because I remember when I heard of it. Yeah, I'd heard of it before we came down. Right. And I'm no gun guy, but apparently crime dropped quite a bit in Kennesaw. It did. And it also, it also was an end run around any debate over gun control. They just said, no, forget it. We're going the exact opposite way of gun control. Everybody has to have a gun. Right. And clearly, you know, the police didn't enter your house in search, which would have been stupid to do in Kennesaw because everybody's armed.

Right. So it wasn't a very heavily enforced law, but it's a, it was a significant one. Right. Everybody in Kennesaw knew it, you know. Right. But we're not talking about gun control today. No. That's not what this podcast is all about. No. It's just a setup. Yeah. What we're talking about is where do you want to get shot? What? Isn't that what we're talking about? The best place to get shot? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Actually, yes.

And the reason we were talking about guns is because there's so many of them. It's pretty, you know, you have a pretty high likelihood in the US to get shot. So as a service of, you know, a public service of how stuff works, we're here to advise you on the best place to take a bullet if you do get shot. As if you can control that. Although there are a couple of things you could do. Sure. I mean, you're in a grocery store and it goes down, you know, the stuff hits the fan, that kind of thing.

Now you'll know what to do. Right. Or an example I used was if an angry loan shark is like, I got a bullet here with your name on it, where do you want to take it? Right. Now you'll know. Right. Okay. So let's, let's first kind of describe what happens when you get shot.

Right. Cause an understanding of, of this called wound ballistics. It's the field of study of, you know, what a bullet does to bone and tissue and organ. Once you understand that, you can figure out pretty easily where the best place to get shot is. Right. Um, okay. So wound ballistics, Chuck. Yes. Kinetic energy, Josh. Yes.

Oh, bullets entire purpose on this planet is to take the energy that it has when it's shot out of a gun and transfer it to your body. Right. Which is determined by its weight and velocity and trajectory and trajectory. Yes. So you, you take all these things together and actually you can, um, predict pretty well the kind of damage that's going to be done. Um, if you are shot in a bone, a bone's going to absorb most of that kinetic energy, if not all,

which sounds like a good thing. It's not, it's not. It means your bones just totally shattered. Right. Which causes essentially a mini shrapnel explosion inside your body. Yeah. And the bone fragments actually end up doing, I don't know about as much, but it does a lot of damage to your organs and. And they've been known to travel all sorts of crazy places too.

Yeah. Bullets, uh, the, I know the big JFK magic bullet theory sounds crazy and I'm not citing one way or the other, but bullets have been known to do weird, weird things once they hit objects. Didn't, wasn't it that, uh, that Texas Senator, didn't supposedly hit his elbow and travel up his arm and then go out and then hit JFK in the face or something? Yeah. And, uh, my, my brother-in-law, who's in the Marine Corps, told me a story one time about a firing range accident where a fellow Marine was shot and it like went in his shoulder and traveled across his chest and then down the arm and like out the tip of his finger.

Wow. Just tumbling. It's just nuts. Wow. Yeah. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West.

Unleashing a wave of violence. My God took a walk into the devil's den. The car fells, they just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for the CIA.

Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh no, not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright-Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There is no need for the outside world because we are removed from it and apart from it and in our own universe.

On the new podcast, The Turning, Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine. There are not very many of us that actually grew up with Balanchine. It was like I grew up with Mozart. He could do no wrong. Like he was a God. But what was the cost for the dancers who brought these ballets to life?

Were the lines between the professional and the personal were hazy and often crossed. He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you, only I can see you. Most people in the ballet world are more interested in their experience of watching it than in a dancer's experience of executing it. Listen to The Turning, Room of Mirrors on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, so these things are deadly and unpredictable, which is a really bad mix.

It's a great combination. Yeah, okay, so that's what happens when bones hit. That kinetic energy is transferred to the bone which shatters and it's bad. And ultimately, here's a little side note, getting shot through and through and in and out is actually good. I mean, you may bleed to death, but you're probably going to bleed to death anyway if it's some sort of vital organ or major artery, but the bullet wasn't, it didn't manage to transfer all of its energy, which is why it kept traveling.

If it stays in your body, all that energy was transferred to your bone, soft tissue, which actually doesn't crush. The kind of wound that a bone sustains is a crushing wound, crushing penetration. Right, soft tissue or organs, that kind of thing. That actually suffers a cavitation. Right, this is screwed up. Right, this is actually, this kind of surprised me. When a bullet passes through you, through tissue,

it creates a cavity that can be up to 30 times as wide as the bullet itself. So it's a wide path. Yeah, and it's created by these shock waves, right? And then the path closes behind the bullet. It's like a split second opening this gulf in your soft tissue, and then it closes behind, but that damage is already done. That shock wave has already just trashed all that soft tissue. Right.

So that's bad too. Right, which sort of brings us to the specialty bullets that are especially made to do maximum harm. We're talking about full metal jacket bullets, and then, yeah, good movie too. And the hollow points, which are designed to fragment after impact or hollow points are soft, and they actually flatten and spread out and create a wider area, wider than that 30%. Yeah, because if you have a little pointy bullet, it's not going to make as much. It's not going to have as much of a wide of a track or create a cavity.

So I just call this people killing bullets. Exactly, these things are designed to most efficiently transfer their energy, all of it to the human body. Right. So yeah, so now we kind of understand what a bullet can do, right? Now the body. Right, the human body. So bone can shatter.

Yes. So you want to kind of, you don't want to get shot in a place that's real bony, especially if it's a bone that's near a vital organ. Right, so your ribs. Yeah, your chest is just out of the question. You've got lungs in there, you've got heart. I think the liver's in there somewhere. I mean, you've got a bunch of really important stuff in there.

Yeah, between your waist and your neck is a lot of organs going on. And if all of a sudden you have rib fragments flying all over the place, then you're in bad shape. And also getting shot in the spine, not a great place. No. Probably a lifelong paralysis, if not death, not a good spot. Right. Your head is a terrible spot too. Yeah, I know the guy that did you interview him?

Yeah, his name is Ed Sizemore. Yeah, he said, you know, you'd rather get shot in the brain than in the heart. No, he said you'd rather get shot in the heart than the brain. Right, because you can repair a heart. There's artificial hearts, there's no artificial brain. I don't think I agree with that. He also pointed out that there are plenty of people who survive gunshot wounds to their brains. Right.

From, I think, 1980 something to 1993. That's pretty fine. It wasn't that scientific. I'm sorry, it was 1982 to 1993. 66% of the people who came into Cook County General Hospital in Chicago with gunshot wounds to their brain lived. So it's not necessarily fatal to get shot in the brain, but you can be messed up for the rest of your life. Sure, brain damage, and that's no kind of fun either. No.

So you want to stay away from the head, you want to stay away from the torso, the spine. And I think, really, ultimately, every single one of our listeners is like, yeah, really, what a huge surprise. What an enlightening podcast. Okay, so let's go to the arms and legs then, Smarties, huh? Yeah. Did any of you say arms or legs? Because if so, you'd be wrong. Yeah, but my first thought was maybe to get shot in the leg would be a good place, because in the movies they just tie bandana around it and limp off.

Yeah, did you ever see, I think it was Rambo, I think it was first blood part two. It might have been three, where he gets shot in the side, he's a through and through wound, and he's down in some sewer or something. And he pours gasoline or sternum into it, and then lights it on fire with a torch to cauterize the wound. And it just shoots through the side of his body, and he screams and everything. It's awesome. Nice. It was pretty good. I just got a glimpse into 12-year-old Josh.

Yeah, I think I was even younger than that, but yeah, that was good stuff. Okay, so, but again, had he chosen wisely, he wouldn't have gotten shot in the side, again close to internal organs. But let's get back to the arms and legs. Right, no good. No, why? Because major, major arteries, the femoral and the brachial arteries run through the leg and the arm, respectively. These are huge arteries, they're responsible for all the blood flow to your extremities, which is pretty important, because without it they would freeze off when it got down to 35 degrees. Right.

And if you get shot in any one of these, if these things become severed, you'll bleed out in about two or three minutes. Yeah, once I read the part about the femoral artery, it recalled, and you know, I've heard a lot on the news about people getting shot in the leg and dying, and that's the reason. It can be a very deadly place to get shot, so what are we left with? Well, by my count, the head, the chest, the arms and legs are out, so I would just say the feet and the hands. That is right. That's probably the best place to be shot. And also, somebody out there who may say, well, what about the pubic region, the hip? No, no.

There is a nerve bundle in your hip that is, by, again, Ed Seismore's reckoning, the most painful place to get shot. The nerve bundle right there would just shoot pain throughout your body in the most efficient manner possible. So not the pelvis either, but yes, a hand or a foot. Well, there's all kinds of bones, though, so. It is true. This is the thing, you know, you would suffer some terrible, terrible crushing injuries. You may never use your hand or foot that you got shot in again. Right.

Number one, you have another one. True. Okay, so let's say you get even, you know, your foot just completely disabled. There are such things as crutches, wheelchairs, you can drag your foot along behind you with your good foot. Your hand, you'll never work with your, you know, whatever hand you got shot in again. But think about the drummer from Death Leopard. He drummed with only one arm. Yeah, true.

Okay, so I mean there's. Rick Allen. Exactly, yes. Is that his thing? Yeah. Nice one. So, yes, it would hurt, but think about how thin your hand and feet are. Your hands and feet are.

It could go right through it. It could go right through it. Hopefully it will go right through. And also those bones that are getting shattered as that, you know, high, high, high speed hollow point bullet mushrooms into it and then goes out the other end. It's very unlikely those fragments will travel to a vital organ. Right. So, is it there far enough away? Well, I guess this makes sense because whenever you hear about stories about army dudes in various wars who want to get sent home, they shoot themselves in the foot.

That's the common way to do it, to get sent home. Yeah, at the very least, Stewie and Brian did. Right, for the family guy. Yeah, it didn't work then. Yeah. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars.

I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence. My God. Talk about walking into the devil's den. The car fells. They just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim.

This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for this CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So, Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh no, not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami.

Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There is no need for the outside world because we are removed from it and apart from it and in our own universe. On the new podcast, The Turning, Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balanchine. There are not very many of us that actually grew up with Balanchine. It was like I grew up with Mozart. He could do no wrong. Like, he was a god. But what was the cost for the dancers who brought these ballets to life?

Were the lines between the professional and the personal were hazy and often crossed? He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you, only I can see you. Most people in the ballet world are more interested in their experience of watching it than in a dancer's experience of executing it. Listen to The Turning, Room of Mirrors on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, yeah, hand or foot, that's the way to go. Agreed. If someone came running at me with a gun, I would lie down and stick up my arms and legs and my hands in front of my face.

Actually, you would be right in lying down. Mr. Sizemore told me, you know, if you get down on the ground, you're presenting a smaller target. His number one advice to any civilian who is being shot at, run. Run. I believe he may have said run like hell. Yeah. I would do a zig-zaggy thing, too. That's another good idea, too. I mean, most people can't shoot to say they're alive.

Yeah. So, yeah, but, you know, you could just as easily run into a bullet. That's true. So, yeah. His number one, run. Number two, lay down on the ground. If you have a choice, hand or foot. Right. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, that brings us to, right, Chuck?

Listener mail. Listener mail. Okay, so who do we have one from there, buddy? This week we have one from one Coral Clark from San Jose, California. Coral's got a great name. Yeah, it's a great name. And this, we've already talked about the jelly bean thing, ad nauseam, for the booger-flavored beans. Hopefully this one will put it to rest, because this is sort of a correction upon a correction that we've already done.

So, in one of our podcasts, we talked about booger-flavored jelly beans. Josh doubted, I had had them. And no, they weren't just real boogers that I had. Right. And someone confirmed, but now Coral writes in and says, back to booger-flavored jelly beans, jelly bellies. While it was true that the trade name Jelly Belly does not market these unusually-flavored sweets, the company that manufactures them, Goalitz, is commissioned to make birdie pots every-flavored beans of Harry Potter fame, which I know you mentioned in our podcast.

When I toured the California factory, they did confirm that they manufactured birdie pots every-flavored beans in their factories, using the same process as for jelly bellies, except they did not always use all-natural flavors, bringing you flavors like dirt, bacon, spaghetti, earwax, and vomit. I could go for bacon or spaghetti. Yeah. I don't know why those would be gross. Well, I agree. I mean, it's a future food, really.

Little tiny capsules of bacon and spaghetti. That's kind of nice, actually. Yeah. So he goes on to say, I think you also mentioned bean-boozled beans, where the black bean might be a licorice or a skunk spray flavor, and the company, Goalitz, produces those as well. That's fantastic. Coral Clark, right?

Coral Clark. Greatest name ever. Thank you very much for writing in. Thanks for the mail. And anybody else who wants to point out a point or revise another point or just say hi or whatever, send us an email at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. Thanks for listening. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.