Forum: Author Hangout

I would think the manner in which a person is knocked out makes a difference.

I would expect a significant difference in experience between a boxer who takes repeated blows to the head before losing consciousness and someone knocked out by a single blow that they never saw coming.

Your job as a writer is to entertain. My readers don't want realism. They want to be appalled, titillated, thrilled, shocked. If you want realism, write a medical report and see who's interested.
Jo-Anne Wiley

Well, it depends on how you get knocked out, and whether you mean out-out, like lights out, or like a technical K.O.

I had both happen to me thanks to the self-defense classes I had to take for my job.

The first one was when I took a swing to the jaw. Never felt it, don't even remember hitting the ground. When I woke up, though, it felt like my yaw was dislocated (it wasn't) and I was dizzy for quite some time.

The second was the technical K.O. kind. We were training how to handle attackers coming at us with batons or something similar, and I took one to the back of my head.

That was a rather weird experience. It hurt like hell... for like a second, then I felt absolutely nothing anymore. No physical awareness at all. Didn't even feel the pressure on the soles of my feet for the second I was still standing. Most memorable was the sound, though. I heard the impact more than I felt it, like if you hit a metal pipe against a hollow wooden object, and then everything was totally quiet, just like I couldn't feel anything anymore. If I closed my eyes or just blinked, I could no longer tell up from down. So, I dropped and just lay there for like a minute before the feeling returned to my body, and then the pain hit. Felt like the guy just kept continuously beating the back of my head with his baton.

I was knocked out a few times between the ages of 10 and 25. Always from hitting my head in some way, not from being struck by someone. Usually it was of the out for a few seconds and wake up with a headache, but one time was different. I was about 15 and did a header over the handlebars on a borrowed bicycle, or so I was told. I have no memory of the event or of about a half hour prior to impact or about a hour or so after. I don't know how long I was out. I did get back up and returned with my friend to his house where my memory function gradually started working again (hour later). My friends said I kept asking the same questions over and over, which is a sympton of concussion where short term memories fail to stick.

I've never been knocked unconscious, but in my own research as a writer I've concluded that many, if not most, cases result in a concussion. At the very least the victim would have a splitting headache.

I'll contribute my personal experiences.

Fainting and crashes.

The first was around 12yo. Fainted waiting in line at a grocery checkout. No memory of why. As others have mentioned, woke up with strangers hovering over my body.

Next was a car crash. Before air bags but did have seat belts, without a shoulder strap. Buddy driving, he rolled the car. My head hit the window, concussion with headaches after.

Many years passed. I was riding my motorcycle and an idiot made an illegal left turn and I t-boned his passenger side @ about 45 mph. Knocked out even wearing helmet and other safety gear. Zero memory from about 4-5 seconds before the crash until 12-15 minutes after when the paramedics were cutting off my riding gear to assess injuries. No concussion, but other bodily injuries that still plague me 12 years after.

Last time was about 18 months ago. At the pub enjoying a beer with a friend. Fainted for an unknown reason and whacked the back of my head pretty hard.

Concussion and two subdural hematomas. Disoriented for about 4-5 weeks. Blurry vision. Did not feel safe to drive. Not nice at all.

That's my experiences.

Do not recommend any of them. Bad juju!

I've been knocked out a few times while sparring. Never for very long, maybe 5 - 10 seconds. Once I recovered and was still on my feet. I never saw the punches or kick coming that I remember. A couple of times there was an odd smell, maybe a bit like a burning smell. The world would go dark, and when I would open my eyes again it would be 5 or 10 seconds later. I knew what happened each time, and still had my wits about me and my coordination. I never felt any pain. The seeing stars phenomenon is a real thing, I only saw them once, there is a scientific
reason for that, it's not an olds wives tail. I tried looking it up and didn't find anything. I saw them once when I became conscious after being knocked out. It was like a lot of bright dots (?50?) when I opened my eyes and lasted less than a minute, maybe a lot shorter than that (it was a long time ago).
I've seen people get knocked unconscious, lose coordination, etc etc as we can see on online boxing videos. Frankly, I was an idiot, you lose a lot of brain cells when the brain is shook up from a blow, or even a mild explosion nearby - the explosive wave transfers directly to the brain from dynamite or a grenade 50 feet away. Don't do those activities if you can avoid it. My two cents.

The closest I have been to be knocked out unconscious was, at age 15 or so, I think it was 9th grade. Certainly the worst and only (serious) concussion I know I have experienced.

(9th was last of what would likely be called "middle school" in English, although we call the next 3 grades literally "middle school" in Latvian (and, in Russian as well btw) while "high school" is reserved for university... but I digress. That would be 1992 or thereabouts; if so, independence was already declared but USSR wasn't yet dismantled. It probably was Wednesday.)

We goofed, horsed around in the hallway, friendly fighting commenced, and for whatever silly idea I tried to kick one guy in the stomach. He grabbed my leg and I fell over backwards, head first. The floor was polished concrete, but there wasn't enough of it in my vector to lay down the entire length. The wall was brick with (up to an inch) thick grainy cement-lime-sand mortar on it, finished with many accumulated layers of shiny alkyd enamel paint. Dull dirty green on the lower part I hit with the back of my head, even before my body slammed to the floor.

There was a very bright orange flash coming from from the back of my eyes out the moment of impact or maybe a microsecond after, then darkness. The sounds, voices slowed down to a low reverberating rumble, but I'm not sure was that effect going out or coming back on.

I don't know how long I was out, but merely a few seconds if even that, I think, because there was little concern yet on the faces when I come back online, and not much movement around (a lot of people in a quite crowded school hallway during recess). The same guy helped me up to my feet.

People asked if I was alright. I said I was, although wasn't exactly sure; examined back of my head with palms and found no obvious external damage. Dusted my clothes. Meanwhile, someone amazed there was an imprint on the wall, a distinct round crack in the paint about the size of my head, although the surface was still flat. Others expressed doubts I could possibly made that with my head and still be standing.

The bell rang, and, coincidence or not, the headache hit right then, as if the sound was pure pain. I grabbed my bag from the windowsill, and realized how dizzy I am, but there was little choice than to go with everyone into the class. It was Russian lesson with our class teacher, and preannounced important test to boot.

I was dizzy, with debilitating headaches, slightly sick to my stomach, and my vision seemingly changed zoom factor at random, but I tried to pay attention. The test included my worst nightmare excercise, writing down dictated speech. Somehow, this was the only time ever I got a positive grade on this task in Russian at school. But that curious fact I didn't learn till the next week.

I decided I felt bad enough to visit school nurse right after the end of the period. Told I fell and hit my head, without going into detail how. She examined me, wrote a slip and sent me home. I pretty much slept the next two or three workdays, but was moderately active during the weekend, walking around in the forest, and went back to school on Monday. Seemingly without any lasting effects.

The wall, nobody cared, it got painted over yet another time the next summer, possibly smoothed out with gypsum first.

It wasn't the first time my head was used as a battering ram in an attempt to demolish a wall. Back in third grade bunch of guys lifted me up and launched me head first against a tilled wall in my previous school's underground eatery (that doubled up as bomb shelter; it was historic building with epic vaults in the basement). The whole section of apparently already loose tiles collapsed over me. But I retained conciousness through it, and if got any concussion at all, it was light and unnoticed in the bedlam that ensued. The school tried to extract damages from my parents. I switched schools.

I'll break this down in to two different occasions.

1) Age ~ 10. Heatstroke feint day started out at -5C and got to 40C. 10Km march or so in full winter dress uniform. Standing on tarmac for a few hours. Felt 'off' getting worse and worse. Ended up collapsing on the curb after it got to be too much. came to and was placed in an ambulance. Felt pretty bad for the next 6 hours but no lasting effects. To this day struggle with heat but have no issues with cold. Heck it doesn't even start till -5 to -10 Deg C

2) Age 16. On deadly treadly. Organised ride of circa 2,500 people plus support staff. On a particularly challenging decent down a mountain pass. pulling 15 Km/h switchbacks at 50-70Km/h. Basically laying the bike flat on the road and praying the tires held. Made it most of the way down till a blind right hander (riding on the left as is local custom). Some wally decides to drive a fricking car against the flow of traffic on a road that you'd be challenged to fit two compacts side by side on. Have split second to decide left/straight/right. all are bad choices but pick left. Pick myself up, head missing the hood by only a few inches, traveling in excess of 70. Try to get back into the corner but it's no good. not enough road and the corner is too sharp. So off the road and do a spectacular inversion. managed to whipe maybe 10Km/h off my ludicrous speed. Continue my 'flip' up through a shrub and land/crash inverted against a granite wall. Shear an SLR with tele lens in half across my back as that's all I had, no bag or anything. Was aware of the whole thing up until the inversion which I worked out I pulled in the vicinity of 300G's instanteously and the next thing I knew there was a 'group' around me. Not a mark on the helmet which was Lycra wrapped so any contact would have shown. One of the crowd was some kind of official as they were screaming at people to slow the hell down. all doing similar speeds to what I had been. Idiot in car convinced I'm dead as I'd been laying limp on the ground. Again no idea how long for but I'd guess well over 10 minutes. Get taken down to the triage tent less than 2Km down the mountain. No concussion, nothing. A few scratches and bruised vertebrae and ribs from breaking the camera. Monitored for the next 30 or so. Rode out the rest of the leg reporting to the teacher I'd been with as this was a 'school excursion', just a very long one. Tell him. He takes me back to medical. Again cleared.

What can I tell you about these two different incidents.

1 Memory of the first affected much more than the second. Not sure if age or heat was the issue.

2 I really should have been killed by the second. Into a wall at an estimated 65Km/h with only a light helmet should be a death sentence. But except for the last split/couple of seconds I remember it perfectly. And yes I did feel like my bell had been 'rung'. I'd say this one qualifies as GLOC, Gravitational Loss of Conciousness and there was little to no 'impact'. I just got very lucky and hit the wall perfectly to survive. Those other two options were actually far worse. Straight would have been a head on with the car, but I likely would have rolled over the top of it. Right, was off a cliff face. The 'pass' descended down a near vertical drop off, trading Height for distance. That would have been a 'drop' of at least 200m. Not a bad assessment for less than 1/10th of a second and about 30-50 meters traveled.

Even though the feinting was the one with worse effects. I'd take it any day over the crash. As you've not given any hints as to how your protagonist gets K.O'ed I thought I put in two options that are as far away from the other posts as possible.

I should also note that I didn't contact the Granite wall at 90Deg, Maybe 30-40. It was the inversion that I'm pretty sure lead to the LOC. I still love speed on the bike but never speed in a car.

If you want, DM me and I'll give further details.

My wife was on a jury where someone was suing the manufacturer of a helmet used in MMA-type fighting. A man who did this often and aggressively got knocked out in practice one day. He got back up after a minute or so, 'shook it off', and continued for the rest of the session. That night he had an aneurysm and since then is wheelchair-bound. The edge of the helmet compressed his jugular enough to cause a lengthwise slit or split. The helmet was a high-quality one and was adjudged not at fault.