Maybe you've been attacked by an evil serial killer.
Maybe you've just got some spare time, a closet, and a leather belt on your hands.
Either way, today we're going to save your life by teaching you how to survive being
strangled.
You might already know this from our videos on how to survive a stab wound, or how to
survive being shot, but the first step of surviving being strangled is to not get strangled
in the first place.
Why do we bring this up?
Because strangulation is one of the go-to ways for deranged serial killers to end the
lives of their victims.
Often it's a power fantasy, strangling is quite literally holding someone's life in
your hands and slowly squeezing it out of them.
So pay attention to your surroundings, especially if you're a woman and it's late at night.
Even more specifically if you're a woman plus a person of color from a low socio-economic
background who's odds of being the victim of a serial killer are statistically greater
than anybody else.
Why?
Because of the 'less dead' phenomenon - where people with incomes below the poverty line
and minorities have throughout history been considered 'less dead' by a society that barely
considered them to exist while they were alive, and thus police don't work quite as hard to
find their killer.
Their deaths tend to slip beneath the public radar, and only if the crime is particularly
gruesome will you find them on the front page even today.
Killers know this, so they target these populations.
People without homes and those engaging in especially risky and often non-legal professions
are particularly vulnerable to serial killers.
But it’s not just the most defenseless and exposed who are at risk.
Literally anyone can find themselves stalked by a serial killer.
So avoid letting that deranged maniac wrapping their hands around your throat in the first
place by being aware of your surroundings.
Has that stranger been traveling in your same direction for a few minutes?
Maybe you're going the same way- or maybe they're plotting how to best watch the light
fade from your eyes.
Try making a random turn and see if they follow.
Or you could cross the street, and see if they do the same.
If someone is mirroring you for one or two random turns or street crossings, odds are
good that they're following you.
Immediately get to somewhere public, or make a loud enough ruckus that you draw attention
to yourself.
Serial killers need anonymity and privacy to be successful, and if a victim is drawing
attention to them or themselves, it's going to spook one away.
But what if the worst comes to worst, and that maniac has ambushed you and is getting
ready to choke you to death?
First, how does strangulation even kill?
Pretty simply really- a good choke hold can stop you from drawing air into your lungs,
which will eventually suffocate you and lead to you passing out.
Interestingly though, strangulation is rarely enough to actually kill- typically after someone
is strangulated, death comes by some other means, as you can survive a few minutes without
oxygen.
Most people will experience an automatic breath reflex that kicks in even after they've been
knocked unconscious by a lack of air, and if your attacker isn't continuously choking
off your air, you can self-resuscitate.
To ensure a good kill, a strangler really needs to hold their stranglehold on your neck
for a few minutes at least.
If you're not dead by then you'll have suffered so much brain damage you might as well be.
So how to survive a strangulation?
First, fight.
In our modern civilized society we don't have much need for our old fight or flight instincts
that kept us alive on the savannas of Africa, but you can bet bottom dollar that in a life
or death scenario those evolutionary instincts will come screaming back to the forefront
of your mind.
But running isn't an option- though if it ever is an option, do it.
Every self defense expert in the world, at least the good ones, will always teach you
that running away is the best option.
In fact, unless you're a professional fighter, any self-defense you learn should be focused
on opening up an opportunity to run, not to defeat your opponent.
Your body will release a jolt of adrenaline, and you need to lean into that.
Once your air has been cut off, you'll have upwards of a minute if you're in good shape
to still be able to fight back.
If you're not in good physical shape then we've got really bad news for you, you might
only have as little as 15 seconds before it's lights out for you.
If you ever needed a motivator to exercise, maybe not getting murdered will do it for
you.
With the release of adrenaline your muscles are going to get a massive boost, unfortunately
without oxygen feeding them though you're on very borrowed time.
Your body will also release natural pain killers though to suppress any wounds you've already
suffered, or might in the course of the fight for your life.
Now it's time to lean into these natural advantages.
First, whether your attacker is coming at you from the front or behind, you need to
pay attention to Wu-tang and tuck your chin down to protect your neck as best you can.
With your chin in the way, it'll make it very difficult for an attacker to actually get
their hands around your neck, or their arm if trying to put you in a traditional choke
hold.
If your attacker is coming at you from behind, once they're physically close to you there's
a few options to defend yourself- and you'll want to try them all.
First, if you happen to be wearing particularly sharp heels, or perhaps are a very heavy person,
a foot stomp can be surprisingly effective at making someone disengage.
To do this, lift your foot up and place it over theirs, then use the heel of your foot
to stomp down on their foot as hard as you possibly can.
Using the heel will make the total contact area on their foot much smaller, which means
you're delivering much more force into a smaller area, maximizing damage.
A good foot stomp versus someone that isn't wearing protective footwear can even crush
bone.
If the foot stomp doesn't do it, a heel strike to the shin just might.
Have you ever banged your shin against a coffee table by accident?
It hurts worse than the crushing despair of your student loan debts.
Now imagine someone kicking your shin with their heel as hard as they possibly can.
But you can always try to aim a few inches higher, and go for the knee.
Knees are surprisingly fragile, and a good knee strike will absolutely ruin your day.
You'll want to kick backwards with your foot flat, striking the knee head on.
This time you actually want to maximize the striking area because you want to strike as
much of the knee as possible.
While you likely won't break a knee cap, you can cause serious damage to the ligaments.
With enough force, you could actually cause the knee to bend in the wrong direction.
If your strangler is still choking you out after that he's seriously committed to the
effort.
Your elbows can be very effective tools as well- in fact many martial arts will teach
newcomers to strike with their elbows rather than their fists, and with good reasons.
A badly formed punch can hurt you more than the other person, and elbows might feel funny
if they take a hit the wrong way, but are pretty tough.
Plus you can put a lot of force behind an elbow.
With your attacker behind you, your best bet would be to aim for kidneys.
This is a notoriously painful area to take a hit in, and a strike with enough force will
actually cause devastating internal bleeding.
With your attacker behind you, this is probably going to be the easiest area to strike at
too.
Now it's time to get dirty.
In a fight for survival, there's no rules, and it's time to get downright primitive.
The ears are often overlooked- unless you're Mike Tyson- but are an extremely vulnerable
part of the body to attack.
Reach up behind you and grab those ears, then pull downwards as hard as you possibly can.
Imagine that you're going to tear the ears off- that's how hard you should be pulling.
If they're wearing jewelry like ear rings, great, rip them off and then keep pulling.
It's best if you can secure a hold by wrapping your entire hand over the top of the ear,
rather than tugging at the bottom as you can easily lose your grip that way.
If you can reach, partner up your ear tears with some bites on your attacker's arms or
hands as they choke you.
In fact, anytime your attacker puts any part of their body near your mouth, bite.
The jaw muscle is one of the strongest in the body, capable of even crushing bone.
Make your attacker pay dearly and rip chunks of flesh out of him if that's what it takes.
What if your attacker is coming at you from the front though?
The knee and shins are once again perfect targets, but you're going to need room to
get a good kick in.
Grab your attacker's hands and pull downwards, then take a step backwards with your strong
leg.
This will give you some room to get a good, strong kick going, but also pull your strangler
slightly forward and put them slightly off balance.
Then deliver a kick as hard as you can with your strong leg, ideally straight into the
knee cap.
This type of kick has a very strong probability of shattering a knee cap, or at the very least
causing so much damage that they're' going to need medical help to repair it.
But don't stop there, as long as you can manage it, continue kicking.
There's no such thing as overkill, and as long as your attacker is leaving themselves
open, continue striking.
Keep in mind that everything we've listed so far are options- there are no perfect scenarios
where you can follow a step-by-step guide for disabling an attacker, so everything we're
teaching you should go into a toolbox, and you should pull out the proper tool for the
proper job.
Another tool to add to your toolbox is a good knee strike, though this time it'll be your
knee doing the striking.
An attacker trying to choke you out from the front is leaving his entire front unguarded
and exposed, and a good knee strike here will wreck someone's day.
The most obvious target is the groin, and for good reason.
Whether you're a man or a woman, the area that brings us the greatest physical pleasure,
also brings us crippling pain.
You're going to need room for a good groin strike though, and you can achieve this by
either putting your hands against their chest and pressing back, or taking a step back with
your strong leg like with the kick to the kneecap.
Having a lot of room will help you build up velocity with your knee, which in turn equates
to more kinetic energy.
Bring your knee smashing into their Spongebob and square pants as hard as you can, and if
once doesn't do the trick, repeat as necessary.
The good thing about being attacked from the front, is that your attacker is very kindly
presenting a whole host of vulnerabilities for you to exploit.
Remember what we said about fighting dirty?
Well, we're going to get downright filthy.
First we'll start with the throat.
If someone's trying to choke you out, why not repay the favor?
A good throat strike can be lethal, with enough force to the front of the throat you can actually
collapse the trachea.
At the very least, you're going to stun them and knock the breath out of them, which can
open up an opportunity to escape or continue your assault.
Next, we're back to the ears- which you're welcome to grab once more and tear downwards.
However, if your hands are free you can do one better.
Bring both hands out to your sides and stick your palms out the way you would if you were
preparing to execute a palm strike.
Then bring your arms in as hard and fast as you can, landing a devastating palm strike
to both your attacker's ears.
Not only is this incredibly painful, but can ring someone's head, stunning them.
However, if you aim directly behind the ears you can actually strike a part of the skull
that will cause a reverberation in the head, and with enough force instantly KO an opponent.
This sweet spot is approximately an inch and a half behind the ear hole.
Let's talk noses.
They're weird when you think about it, sort of like flesh chimneys.
But they're also easy to break and very painful to get hit on.
If your arms are free, lift your hands up above your head, but this time wrap your fists
together to perform a hammer strike.
Then bring that hammer down directly onto the bridge of the nose of your attacker as
hard as you can.
Unless your attacker has been in several nose-breaking fist fights, the shock should be enough to
at least weaken his strangulation attempt.
But let's talk about this script writer's personal favorite- the eyes.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and we're going to break some windows and
claw that soul right out of your attacker's skull.
Warning- eye gouging isn't for the faint of heart, and is a move you better be completely
dedicated to executing.
If your attacker recovers from a half-hearted eye gouge, well if they didn't want to kill
you before they definitely will now.
Wrap your hands around your opponents head, with your thumbs over their eyes.
Then apply inward pressure as hard as you can.
Ideally you want to try and maneuver each thumb towards the inside of the eye, close
to where the eye meets the nose, or on the opposite side, rather than straight on.
This way as you apply full pressure, your thumb will follow the curve of the eye and
guided by the eye socket, slip inside the socket itself- this is actually how they used
to conduct lobotomies.
Your goal is simple- crush the eyes or gouge them out.
With enough pressure inwards, the eye will actually begin to hemorrhage, which will lead
to at minimum temporary blindness.
However, if your thumb can slide inside, you can apply sideways pressure that will actually
pop the eye out of the socket entirely.
At that point if your attacker is still choking you, grab the eye and yank it downwards.
Eyes can actually be popped out of their socket by accident and remain attached by the optic
nerve.
By yanking downwards you can tear the eye free of the optical nerve and permanently
blind your attacker.
Eye gouging is pretty much a one-way street.
There's no way to 'moderately' eye gouge someone- once you're executing an eye gouge you're
going to be causing permanent harm, so be sure it's a life or death scenario before
resorting to this technique.
Now check out How To Survive a Home invasion, or click this other video instead!