Bullet skims the skull

[snopes]

Comment: Is it really possible for a bullet to hit one in the head, and
skip or skim along the skull, popping out the other side with no damage to
the brains inside?

I found references to it on these two pages:
http://www.military-sf.com/Weaponry.htm
http://www.hipowersandhandguns.com/H...Ammunition.htm

It seems pretty incredible, but then again, the skull is pretty hard. It
might be similar to a rock skipping across the surface of water.

I can't find any medical website to confirm or deny this possibility.

[NovaSS]

With out damage? I dont think so. Even if the round traveled around the inside of the skull for any distance the brain would still suffer from hydrostatic shock. This is the pressure from the round. So even if the round did not directly cause damage to the brain the it would still suffer from this pressure wave. Yes you may survive and maybe you would heal but your brain would have damage.

Can the skull deflect a round?? yes. It happened to me seveal years ago I had a9mm round take off a part of my ear lope after it glanced off my skull. The scars can not be seen and the amount of ear lobe lost is a very small amount and most peopl do not notice it. As for my hearing, the fire arm was about 10 inches from my head so my ear drum took a beating and I have some hearing loss in that side.

I tell people im ALMOST faster than a speeding bulet

[Malruhn]

Hey, Nova, question time: Did the bullet stop? Did you? Then you MUST be faster!!

I've read the same story a couple times - entered at a very steep angle (from straight ahead), entered the temple, ran around the side of the skull and out the back of the skull. According to what I recall, the guy looked like he'd been killed outright, but it's been probably fifteen years since I read the book. For some reason, I was thinking Vietnam. No proof of veracity.

[Eddylizard]

I read it as the hypothetical bullet does not penetrate the skull, but due to it's trajectory or the shooters bad aim skims along the outside runing under the skin, nicking the scalp in the process, maybe nicking the bone of the skull. Almost but not quite a miss if you like.

I think that's possible, but I'm not sure after reading NovaSS's pressure wave thing as to whether under those circumstances the pressure wave would cause brain damage, despite the lack of penetration.

[robbiev]

I've seen pictures of people who took shots to the head, where the bullet arched over the head, for instance, hit in the front and the round skimmed over the top of the head and left a "ditch" (for lack of being able to recall a better word at the moment) from the front to the back.

However, I can't comment on brain damage, so I guess I should have kept my mouth shut.

I've heard of a guy who got shot in the forehead with a .22 and the bullet skimmed th skull the whole time. DRT.

[DobbinDodger]

Hi all. I'm a military museum curator and have been doing some informal research into wound ballistics. I have no special knowledge or experience in the field, but just wanted to say that from what I've read, not only is a bullet skim on the outside of the skull quite possible in the right (incredibly lucky) circumstances, but handgun bullets can enter the skull and travel to its rear, without causing serious damage to the brain. This is because they travel at a relatively low velocity, and so hydrostatic shock is far less of an issue (if at all).

Thus a .22 or even a .38 - 9mm sized round can behave in this way and still be extracted without serious long-term injury to the victim. Check out page 45 of this book on google books;

...if the bullet is fired at an angle or hits a curved portion of the skull, deflection will usually result. In some cases, the bullet will form a wound track as it follows the curved bone, and may even exit without perforating the skull. It is also possible that a bullet piercing the skull will richochet along the inner skull and remain lodged in it. In such instances, bullet-brain interaction is minimised, resulting in minimal brain damage.

The book, "Missile Wounds of the Head and Neck" by Aarabi and Kaufman, quotes references/sources for this.

I think that's pretty conclusive - it may be relatively rare, but it does happen, both outside and inside the skull.

[Troberg]

There was a case of suicide in my home town a decade or so ago, where a guy shot himself in the roof of his mouth. The gun was angled so that the bullet followed the inside of the cranium, and left the cranium at the back of the neck, severing an artery, causing him to bleed to death before help could arrive. If not for the bleeding, the wound would probably not have been fatal, according to local newspapers. I don't know what kind of gun it was, but I would guess a small caliber gun with subsonic ammunition.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

I can't back this up -- it's pure anecdote -- but I've heard the same thing about a bullet grazing along the ribs, so that it enters in front and leaves from the back, but somehow (?) kept from leaving the body by the skin and muscles of the torso. The bullet travels a "C" or "(" shaped path.

I can speak from personal experience about bullets ricocheting off of rocks; you never know what weird angle they'll take! There was a tv show about guns, where a guy did some trick shots, deflecting bullets (looked like .45 rounds from a revolver) from a flat metal plate set in the ground. But he warned people that the deflection path is not entirely predictable, and that the trick involved some danger to the shooter.

Silas

Someone can be shot in the head have the bullet enter the brain and survive. I have seen this during my two years of surgical residency. The victim after getting emergency surgery to remove part of his skull to allow the injured brain to swell. This guy was walking the next day. Think of Phineas Gage; he had a steel spike go through his skull. If the bullet crosses both hemispheres the the mortality rate goes up to 95%.

During my time in residency the senior residents would sometime do a CAT scan of an abdomin of a victim of a GSW to the abdomen. One of them developed a hypothesis that the thick the layer of fat around the abdomen the more likely it was for a bullet to track along the fat and not penetrate the abdominal cavity. (If a bullet penetrates the abdominal cavity then the patient would need to have exploratory surgery to look for perforated bowel.)