Frequent readers of this blog know that a particular bee in my bonnet is the way the media portrays unarmed attacks as minor incidents.
Just because someone is unarmed doesn’t mean that they are not dangerous. A bare-knuckle punch can cause a lot of damage.
Today’s lesson comes from a bully who was picking on another kid with an injured hand.
Watch what happens:
The kid in the orange shirt cold-cocked him right in the temple. That was it, lights out.
Punches to the head are dangerous, but there are two places that are particularly nasty to get punched. The temple and the underside of the tip of the jaw.
The rotational force applied to the skull from either a temple hit (lateral rotation) or an uppercut (vertical rotation) causes the brain to slam around the inside of the skull tethered only by the brain stem and blood vessels, which have a tendency to rupture when they get yanked on really hard.
The result is a loss of consciousness and some level of brain damage.
It’s hard not to feel that the bully got his comeuppance by getting “laid the fuck out” like that.
But look at how he goes limp when he gets hit, falls like a tree, and slams his head into a desk and the floor on his way down.
That’s a sure sign of a TBI.
A punch to the head is no minor thing. Your brain is a very sensitive organ and anything that makes it bleed, even just a little, is life-threatening.
Don’t let yourself get punched.
So the teacher KNOWS that something is going down. But this is so normal in this classroom that the teacher isn’t doing anything, the other students are just keeping their heads down and trying not to attract attention.
When the physical confrontation is starting, our guy who has been quietly stacking books/papers is on high alert. Watch his pose, watch his weight shift. His head is down but he’s turned his face to watch what’s about to go down.
He was waiting for the attack and when it started he moved. But not before.
And ONLY after he moved and ended the fight did the teacher show up to “stop the fight” that was already over.
Nasty stuff.
While I, and probably just about anyone else who watches that, cheer when the bully gets cold-cocked by the dude “just minding his own business” until he isn’t, the big lesson here is to maintain situational awareness. The bully failed to do that, and he paid for it, and could have paid for it with his life. All it would have taken, as hard as he fell, is a table edge or a chair back intersecting the back of his neck as he went down, and he could have died from a broken neck. He failedto maintain awareness, not only of who was around him, but what was around him. While he was the aggressor, and deserved to have his comeuppance, he failed hard at choosing his fight.
So did the bullied. Already at a disadvantage due to his busted hand, he abandoned a favorable environmental situation by going over the desk, taking an obstacle for the bully and turning it into an obstacle for him.
The “good Samaritan” who cold-cocked the bully is the only one who did it right. Plenty of room to maneuver, obstacles behind his target (the other tables and chairs), and waiting for an opportunity to strike. I’m not justifying or condemning the fact he intervened; merely commenting on the manner of his intervention.
Do your best to pick your fights. Preferably, don’t fight; If you can’t do that, set yourself up in favorable surroundings; if you can’t do that, end it quickly.
Are we sure that whole “super predator” thing was false?
Ever see the Mythbusters episode where they made a simulated brain and skull and smacked it with beer bottles? Excellent — and terrifying — demonstration of what happens when you get hit in the head.
Maybe he will be a better person when he comes to – IF he comes to.