The Inexplicable Happened....

[huntingsgr8]

So, as many of you (if not all) have targeted vermin to maintain your skills, or to just keep the ruckus in the attic down. When I was a boy my father had a small feed store, and I was his official pest controller. To date I've shot hundreds, it's almost reflexive, but this week an anomaly occurred which I thought impossible. I put one down with a shot to the head with a .22, using an unplated round nosed bullet. It fell, it twitched, and when I picked it up, the thing started to squeak and hack. The thought that I had just graised it flashed through my mind, until I turned it around....and saw it was missing a piece of skull 3/8 of an inch in diameter. I could see it's brain, and the bullet hole in it, it had been a properly executed shot. I immediately put it on the ground to finish it off, but discovered my magazine was empty, so I had to step into the house to grab another bullet. I was still trying to breathe, and squeaking when I returned to finish it.

In my lifetime I never thought this was something that was possible. Spasmodic muscular movements, sure, seen plenty, but this squirrel, I swear it was still conscious. The bullet went through both hemispheres of the brain, and caused a significant amount of blood loss, and yet it clung on for over a minute until I finished it off. I wouldn't believe it, if I hadn't seen it myself. Has anyone else seen something like this occur? It just defies everything my experience has taught me to be true.

[45workhorse]

Hopefully it didn't breed any more 'super' critters!

[Hickory]

Once, while shooting prairie dogs I shot one in the head it jumped and twitched for a while and ended up on its back running in place for over 2 hours.

[Winger Ed.]

It was dead, but didn't know it yet.

[Markopolo]

i had a bear that did that very thing to me this year.. lol

[huntingsgr8]

Do tell

[fiberoptik]

Popped a tree rat in the head with my .22 lr. hv non- hp’s. It ran up the rest of the tree, kept running as I t fell from a high oak, hit the ground & stopped. Picked it up and turned it over, looking at the hole and brains . It cake to in my hand & tried to bite me. I rang its neck like a chicken . I was a teen & it was a bit unsettling! Began using hollow points after that.


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[NyFirefighter357]

I had a deer hit by paramedic in an SUV responding to a call, an off duty LOE stopped and shot it, 2hrs later it was back in the road. I stopped because I knew the paramedic he had found it back in the road. I used a brand new ultra sharp hunting knife to slit it through ear to ear while standing over it from behind. It got up, now I'm straddling it. I couldn't keep control of it as it was bucking & it's head was flipping off it's neck like a PEZ dispenser. The snow at the shoulder of the road was about 2' high, I was able to get off it's back and it made it off the road onto the snow. The local cops had already been dispatched & showed up a few minutes later and ended the ordeal.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Tough little critters. I've had a few stubborn ones that required quite a bit of ventilation...

[Dapaki]

Chickens, beheaded they can run around the yard for several minutes. Proving they never had brains in the first place!

[poppy42]

There is only one way to insure A one shot kill in any animal. That is to take out the medulla oblongata ( brain stem). It is the part of the brain that controls all autonomic functions. Breathing heart beats and blood pressure etc. separate the brain from the brain stem and it is instant death in any animal. In man, The size Of the brain stem is somewhere between the size of a quarter And a 1/2 dollar. In a squirrel you can imagine it’s quite a bit smaller. It is entirely possible to take out a large portion of the brain and have an animal still have autonomic function. The thing is, even though the animal is breathing and his heart is still beating it’s basically brain dead. How many times have you seen in the news where a person has been shot in the head or received severe head trauma but still breathing and the heart is still pumping blood. It’s the same thing and all animals. The screeching heard was nothing more than an autonomic response. It was not in pain. the brain has no Nerve endings so it feels no pain. That’s why a lot of brain surgeries are done with the patient awake. The only thing that needs to be anesthetized is the scalp and the skull. The brain itself feels no pain.

[mozeppa]

Chickens, beheaded they can run around the yard for several minutes. Proving they never had brains in the first place!

and then they become democrats.

[rancher1913]

google mike the headless chicken, happened along the front range long time ago.

[alfadan]

I shot two possums back to back that were feeding on a dead armadillo. One shot each with a 158 swc out of my rossi and I thought I'd missed them; just couldn't be that thing is a laser beam. They just stared at me. Finally they walked off, started staggering, then fell over

[jcren]

Several years ago, I shot a small opossum that was in the cat food with my old trusty 22 cal Benjamin air rifle (that had accounted for countless big opossum, skunks and stray cats) just in front/below the ear. Started down the steps to get the shovel and the thing rose up and began running in small 18" circles, turning in the same direction as he was shot. Took at least a minute to gather my wits and get a .22 to finish the job, running the whole time. Quite unnerving and I never used an air rifle on bigger pest since.

[trails4u]

I had a hammer dead squirrel come back to life in the back pocket of my hunting vest once..... Lively experience!!

[303Guy]

Yup. Shooting out half the brain is no guarantee of instant death. Half the head shot away with half the brain remaining and exposed and the critter is alive and chirping and conscious to boot. Just not able to fly away.

[Iowa Fox]

Thats what boot heels are for

[Neverhome]

When I was in college I lived with my grandparents. Granddad was a big fisherman and used squirrel tails often when making lures. It wasn’t uncommon to find whole frozen squirrels just thrown willy nilly into the garage refrigerator right next to food. Well I get home real late one night and get a craving for frozen lasagna which just happens to reside in the garage fridge.
I open the freezer door and this squirrel starts running all over!
Scared the heck out of me! I slammed the door and went without my lasagna that night.
Tough ********. This had to be midnight. It had to have been unconscious when it was thrown in there and must have been there for at least 5 hours.
By morning it was thankfully really dead.

[Texas by God]

That squirrel had some alligator blood. They live long past death.

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