Internal decapitation, atlanto-occipital dislocation, or orthopedic decapitation describes the rare medical condition in which the skull separates from the spinal column during severe head injury. This is generally fatal, since it generally involves nerve damage or severing the spinal cord.
The practice of hanging relies on internal decapitation, as it creates a situation where subjects' necks are broken under their own weight. A botched hanging can result in an external decapitation or, if the neck does not break, a situation in which the subject strangles to death.
Read more about Internal Decapitation: People Who Have Survived Internal Decapitation
Famous quotes containing the word internal:
“We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator’s power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)