If you attempt the techniques demonstrated by Detroit Urban Survival Training on TikTok,
you may end up with a serious injury… or worse.
By now, we’ve all seen Dale Brown on TikTok, the founder of Detroit Urban Survival training
who claims to teach people how to create safety safely. And while the ability to
act as your own bodyguard may be alluring – in my experience working in life and death situations,
you need a touch of realism. When push comes to shove,
and someone is waving a gun in your face, a false sense of confidence might prove fatal…
It is for this reason that commander Brown’s
rise to internet fame has attracted such staunch critics and debunkers.
Real close quarters combat instructors and tactical professionals have joined the debate.
On one hand, it would be a shame if someone was misled to believe they could do something
that they couldn’t, and ended up injured because of it. And on the other hand,
if an attacker really means the worst, then even a 1% increase in survivability might be invaluable.
Is it real? More importantly in my opinion, is it right? What do you guys think?
Let me know in the comments down below as we take
a look at some of Commander B’s moves and I’ll tell you what injuries you
(or your attacker) might suffer if you attempt these techniques in real life.
So you’re in a dark alleyway and someone approaches you with a knife: “give me your
wallet!” They look unhinged and your gut tells you that they’re going to attack. There’s a lot
on the line as common knife injuries include: lacerations of varying severity to your face,
neck, and upper extremities, and penetrating stab wounds to your abdomen and chest.
Since the natural reflex when someone is stabbing you is to reach out to protect yourself,
it is common for knife attack victims to have injuries to their upper extremities and hands.
In a 2014 study of knife attack victims in a major trauma Centre,
64% of all knife attack injuries were to the extremities. The chest and abdomen were
the next most common targets at 12.1 and 9.6%, respectively. Most of the extremity injuries were
superficial and did not require specialist care. However, 7% did require either examination under
anesthesia or plastic surgery for suspected tendon injury. Most abdominal injuries were isolated,
but up to 25% had associated chest injuries. The intraabdominal organs most usually injured were
the large and small bowels, the liver, and the spleen. The majority of chest wounds were also
isolated with over ¼ of these injuries involving penetration of the pleural cavity. Suffice it to
say that getting stabbed is not good and is likely to land you in the local Emergency Department with
an injury that may range from minor to extremely grave, and potentially life threatening.
But if your attack to the knee is successful, your attacker would suffer: a dislocation of the
knee with an associated major ligament injury, or even a peri-articulate fracture around the knee.
The knee - which is a hinge joint - is quite limited in its degrees of freedom.
It’s primary plane of movement is the Sagittal plane, meaning that it hinges and slides
front to back. It can also accommodate a small amount of rotation in the transverse plane.
However, it does not allow any significant movement in the frontal plane, and has
robust ligament outs stabilizers that limit the ability of the knee to move in these directions.
By kicking the knee backward, you force the knee beyond its natural range of motion.
When the knee is forced into extension by a blow to the front of the knee,
the cruciate ligaments are sequentially tensioned until failure. If the deforming force continues,
the posterior capsule is also disrupted as well. With these ligamentous injuries
the knee becomes unstable in the sagittal plane and can no longer resist extension.
For the record, this is a bad thing. It is difficult to walk, or even stand with this degree
of instability. And if the deforming force is angled from the outside, the collateral ligaments
can become involved, and the instability is likely to be even worse. So land one of these on your
attacker and they will have a hard time doing much of anything other than whimpering on the pavement.
For more on this injury, check out my video on the oblique kick in mixed martial arts.
Somewhere in an alternate universe, your leg kick misses, your attacker
slips behind your back and you find yourself in a heavily compromised position: “I said,
give me your wallet or I’ll cut your throat…” You take a deep breath,
recalling a TikTok that Commander B posted earlier that day, and attempt a daring escape…
Now, a knife slash to the throat is not to be taken lightly:
Given the position of the knife against the throat and the likelihood that you are not a trained
combatant knowledgeable in CQB techniques, you stand a good chance of getting your throat cut.
How you fare after this injury depends on where you were cut and what structures were injured.
Important structures that might be injured include the jugular veins, the carotid arteries,
the trachea, esophagus, a few important nerves, and some of the supporting muscles of the neck.
The jugular vein is one of the main vessels for blood flow leaving the most energy hungry
organ of the body, the brain. The carotid and vertebral arteries bring a large volume of blood
under pressure to the brain. The jugular veins allow all of that blood to exit the
brain en route to the heart after the oxygen it carries has been consumed by the brain.
Disruption of this flow from the brain prevents its return to the heart which can eventually
allow the pump to fall out of prime. No bueno. You need the pump to be primed. Injury of the
carotid would hinder the flow of oxygenated blood to the brain. Did I mention that the brain is a
glutton for oxygenated blood. If you cut off the supply of that, the computer powers down,
which if left untreated, could be fatal. In both cases, there is collateral flow
on the opposite side of the neck that will temporarily delay eventual shutdown. However,
without prompt medical intervention, your computer might not get a chance to be rebooted.
The trachea, is the main conduit for air exchange between the pharynx, or oral cavity,
and the lungs. Although rather gruesome, it is possible to lacerate the trachea and survive. Air
can transit a lacerated trachea quite readily, it does not care whether it comes through the pharynx
or through a hole in the neck. Surgeons will occasionally use this type of passage
in emergency settings when they perform a tracheostomy. However, were there profuse
bleeding associated with the laceration, blood could occlude the trachea distal,
or beyond the laceration making breathing difficult or impossible. The airway might
need to be temporarily protected to preserve adequate respiration. While the esophagus
is technically in the danger zone, it is deep within the neck and less likely to be injured
by a single slash to the neck. Some of the nerves that might be injured by a neck slash include the
vagus nerve and the recurrent laryngeal nerve. The vagus nerve is responsible for the regulation
of internal organ functions, which include digestion, heart rate, and respiratory rate,
as well as vasomotor activity, and some reflex actions, such as coughing, sneezing, swallowing,
and vomiting. INjury of this nerve could cause a whole host of problems for basal body functions.
And that would be problematic. At least with a laceration of the superficial muscles of the neck,
you would only have trouble moving your head and neck. [tilt head back here] No biggie.
But then again, if you successfully disarm your opponent and stab them in the nape of the neck
they won’t be in very good shape either. A stab wound to the back of the neck would normally be
expected to be an incapacitating, if not lethal injury, depending on the depth at which the blade
had penetrated. Superficially, this would result in only a laceration to the back of the neck. If
deeper, you would impact the paraspinal muscles on either side of the spinal column
and the posterior elements of the spine itself. Any deeper than that though,
and your attacker will have a problem. Deeper penetration would result in an
injury to the spinal cord itself, and at this level, it would cause paralysis and
quite possibly rapid death as well as result of disruption of control of the diaphragm.
This time, you’re cornered by multiple attackers… Luckily none of them have a
weapon and all of them like to dance around like poorly programmed computer A.I.–
too sarcastic? Fine, let’s talk wrist control.
The aggressor this time is unarmed, grabs you by the wrist and demands you jump into their van.
Your mind flashes back to Commander B’s TikTok
about leveraging the biomechanics of the hand and you are now in control.
In this position, the aggressor has to worry about his trapped wrist and the shoulder: With this
joint lock, the wrist is trapped by Commander B’s hand in ulnar deviation where the hand is angled
toward the pinky finger. Normally, the wrist can only accommodate up to 30-35 degrees of ulnar
deviation, and that is generally only in someone who works on wrist mobility. When Commander B adds
wrist dorsiflexion to the mix, you get a rather painful way to control would-be attackers. If the
attacker decided not to comply, you could use this technique to dislocate the attacker's wrist…which
might make it difficult to perpetrate nefarious acts on would-be victims. And in this position,
he must worry about his shoulder and his forearm as well. All joints in the body have a specified
range of motion beyond which bad things happen to the joint, and in this position it would
become possible to dislocate his shoulder, or possibly even break the attacker's forearm as
well. In this position, the shoulder is externally rotated maximally leaving it susceptible to
an anterior dislocation, where the head of the humerus pops out of the front of the joint. Now,
i am telling you this because I am an orthopedic surgeon, your attacker might not have a similar
level of education so they might not recognize the impending disaster and before you know it,
their shoulder is out. Which is good for you and bad for them…as it should be.
And if you really lean on the attacker’s arm quickly with a little bit of force,
you might just get lucky enough to break the forearm at the edge of Commander B’s hand.
His hand will function as a fulcrum over which the forearm can be broken.
I have said many times before that bones are great in compression but that they suck in rotation and
are not so hot in bending. This technique could promote bending of the forearm and it could
definitely be a problem for your attacker. Looks like Commander B might not be so bad after all.
Great. So you’ve successfully defended yourself against several aggressors. Unluckily for you,
they’ve warned their aggressor friends about your superior techniques and now,
all approaching aggressors approach with… you guessed it. Guns!
Suddenly, you feel a strong hand on your shoulder and the
familiar feeling of cold steel against the back of your head.
No sweat – you breathe deeply, allowing Commander B’s confident voice to fill your consciousness.
You know that a bullet wound to the back of the head is fatal: a fast moving projectile will
penetrate the skull easily at point blank range. En route to its exit wound on the other side of
the skull, the bullet will traverse the brain case with the enclosed brain doing very little to stop
it. Since the brain is pretty much electrified jello, it doesn’t really work that well after
a projectile and its associated pressure wave slice through it. That’s pretty much game over
as a result of catastrophic damage to the brain tissue, extensive haemorrhage with the skull,
extravasation of brain contents outside of the skull, or a combination of all of the above.
You put all of this out of your mind, and attempt to be faster than the trigger. You
leave your attacker with a sore face, wondering how a simple pedestrian could move so quickly.
Later that day, another attacker approaches, this time from the front.
The gun is pressed up against your sternum, inches away from your heart. A gunshot wound
in this location would cause: massive injuries to the mediastinum. The mediastinum is the space
that is located in the middle of the chest, behind the sternum. The mediastinum contains the heart,
aorta, esophagus, thymus, trachea, lymph nodes and some nerves. Perforation of the mediastinum by a
penetrating object is generally not desirable, and if severe, can cause injury to any one of
the structures located behind it. This would be bad. The mediastinum is generally considered to be
no man’s land, or tiger country, meaning that we really prefer not to be there. Surgery
in this area is complex and risky so we try to avoid it when possible. Any one of the structures
contained within could be catastrophically injured and that would largely be incompatible with life.
But after 10 hours with Commander B, you’re a trained professional who is indeed, faster than
the trigger. [BROLL – wild west quick draw]. Now the attacker is at your mercy. If pinning them
down to the ground is too tame for your liking, perhaps a warning shot in the shoulder or lower
extremities, not that I advocate you shooting anyone. But in the event that you are defending
yourself from an attacker with a firearm, I won’t fault you for protecting yourself.
Now, remember: if one does not wish to be shot in this position,
they must be faster than the trigger. If they are not,
the bullet will enter: your skull through it’s base after first taking a tour of your oropharynx
while taking chunks of your mandible along for the ride. And if we trace the trajectory of the
bullet from the muzzle of the gun, it is likely that the bullet will also damage the orbital,
the enclosed eye, and a portion of the nose as it travels toward the cranium.
However if you successfully disarm your opponent, they won’t even be able to see you as you walk
away. Either you will lacerate the eyelid, lacerate the cornea itself, or if your grip
is strong enough, rupture the globe itself. All of those are quite uncomfortable, and at least
two of them make it extremely difficult, if not impossible to see. Which is good for you, if he is
trying to attack you, unless of course, you were not able to gain control of the gun and he decides
to fire it off in random directions. [grimace here] Should you even choose to walk away…
And for my last work:
If nothing else, Commander B and his Detroit Urban Survival Training videos are
entertaining to watch. What do you want to see me cover next?
As always, that’s been a word from Dr Chris, not your everyday ortho.