Possible to lift a human by the spine?

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Deepthought

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If an incision were made on the small of the back, would it be possible to fit a hand in as so to grasp the spine and lift the person? I imagine the back muscles may be obstacles to such an attempt, or perhaps internal organs.
 

CWatts

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What?! WHY?!
I guess it would be possible if you don't mind paralyzing or killing whoever you try this on. This would be a truly horrific way for a monster to capture its victims and drag them off to its lair to eat later...
 

Deepthought

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Well, it wouldn't be a monster, just a human doing that. I don't think the person would get paralyzed unless the other person intentionally meant to break it. I was just wondering, would the thoracolumbar fascia need to be cut away? That is, if the skin is cut, would it provide direct access to the spine? Or are the muscles attached in a manner such that they obstruct the spine from the back? I looked at a few pictures of back muscles on google; could one simply push the erector spinae to the side and slip their fingers through? And what about the 'front' part of the spine; anything attached there? Or internal organs that might accidentally get poked and thus infected/injured?
 
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mccardey

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Well, it wouldn't be a monster, just a human doing that. I don't think the person would get paralyzed unless the other person intentionally meant to break it. I was just wondering, would the thoracolumbar fascia need to be cut away? That is, if the skin is cut, would it provide direct access to the spine? Or are the muscles attached in a manner such that they obstruct the spine from the back? I looked at a few pictures of back muscles on google; could one simply push the erector spinae to the side and slip their fingers through? And what about the 'front' part of the spine; anything attached there? Or internal organs that might accidentally get poked and thus infected/injured?
Would a human have enough strength in one arm to lift another human? Or is human2 a child?
 

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I...literally cannot imagine a scenario where this makes sense. No matter what, you’ll dislocate the vertebrae. The spine is held together by tendons, meat, and not much else. By reaching in there your character is removing the stuff that keeps the spine in tact. Weight working the way it does, the victims’s spine with break. That’s not even getting into the damage to the internal organs. If you’re writing schlocky horror, I suppose none of this matters. Creative gore is it’s own kind of fun in the right context. But I doubt there’s a way to do this seriously.

ETA: the image of one person carrying around another like a purse is grimly hilarious (in a 2016 DOOM kinda way)
 
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Deepthought

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Yes, it would be done to a child.

I see. I was thinking if the hand was wrapped around the muscles as well as the spine, but that would be unwieldly. The problem seems to be that each of the tendons are connected to each vertebrae, rather than my mental image of being able to slip through muscle groups like the separation between, say, bicep and shoulder. I think.
 

mccardey

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Yes, it would be done to a child.

I see. I was thinking if the hand was wrapped around the muscles as well as the spine, but that would be unwieldly. The problem seems to be that each of the tendons are connected to each vertebrae, rather than my mental image of being able to slip through muscle groups like the separation between, say, bicep and shoulder. I think.

IANAD but as a reader, I'd be inclined to think - really?

I'm not saying you couldn't convince me, but you'd have to have convinced me quite a long way before that happened.
 

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There are a bunch of muscles associated with the lumbar region. I would agree with Pyrite Fool that there'd be dislocation for sure. The vertebral processes are good at preventing some movement, but not in the way you're suggesting. And how are you going to stop the victim bleeding to death?
 

mccardey

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There are a bunch of muscles associated with the lumbar region.
Not with mine. I have no muscles. (Interesting story - I was actually born with no muscles at all. Couldn't even walk. It took almost a year, I think...)

That's why I don't exercise. I know the value of muscles. I don't want to wear them out.
 
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Bufty

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Outside of a horror story I cannot comprehend reading about this taking place anywhere. What is the reason for doing this to someone else?
 

CWatts

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Outside of a horror story I cannot comprehend reading about this taking place anywhere. What is the reason for doing this to someone else?

Seconded, plus with the added factor of it being *child abuse* I might throw the book across the room. (Which I'd surely regret if it's on my tablet.)

I can't imagine any situation where someone would do this to a child unless it's the M.O. of a particularly vile serial killer. If you need to pick up a child, you just...pick them up. In an emergency you might risk dislocating a shoulder to prevent something worse. You're not going to surgically inflict spinal bifida...!
 

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I see, thanks. I will rule it out and use something else. It seems there are too many things to make it fail. I just wanted something a little different.

The story is difficult to describe, but running theme is conflict of loyalty and interest. What happens here is that the child escapes from a kidnapping, but due to the kidnapper having clout with police, manages to recapture the child. But not before the child kidnaps the kidnapper's daughter and hides her away and sends a video to the man to make him admit his crimes to clear the boy so he can return home. The boy tries to wait it out so the man cracks, and thus is threatened with disability if he doesn't spill the beans, as he could wait out 'regular' torture. Bending the boy wouldn't break his back, as he is one of those circus contortion types. But the man can't risk hurting the boy too much or else the boy will simply give up on freedom. A balancing act, if you will.
 

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I see, thanks. I will rule it out and use something else. It seems there are too many things to make it fail. I just wanted something a little different.

The story is difficult to describe, but running theme is conflict of loyalty and interest. What happens here is that the child escapes from a kidnapping, but due to the kidnapper having clout with police, manages to recapture the child. But not before the child kidnaps the kidnapper's daughter and hides her away and sends a video to the man to make him admit his crimes to clear the boy so he can return home. The boy tries to wait it out so the man cracks, and thus is threatened with disability if he doesn't spill the beans, as he could wait out 'regular' torture. Bending the boy wouldn't break his back, as he is one of those circus contortion types. But the man can't risk hurting the boy too much or else the boy will simply give up on freedom. A balancing act, if you will.

This calls into question the age of the boy: Is he old enough to think straight? A kidnapped adult would have difficulty thinking rationally in the same circumstances.

Torture aside, unless the boy is set up as a genius who is accustomed to operating in kidnapping or other nefarious / illegal situations, or in other ways (demonically) possessed, I'd be highly sceptical about the video and the second kidnapping.
 
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frimble3

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I'm thinking that if the boy is old enough to escape and kidnap and video, etc. he's too big to be safely lifted by the neck. Even a cat stops lifting her kittens when they get older, and they're built for it.

How about the kidnapper fastens the boy into a harness, and hangs him up, high over a concrete floor or a cliff, and threatens to drop him, maybe even jolting him up and down, periodically? Something like a safety harness, only fastened in the back, or with his hands bagged or such?
Not as gruesome, maybe, but survivable.
 

Deepthought

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The boy is 12. I understand that the suspension of disbelief might appear to be heavy, but its been worked out.

The video and second kidnapping is also not a problem. The child and the daughter and kidnapper have known each other for years. The interplay of a criminal's relatives and the direction of the dynamics of those types of relationships are what allows such scenarios to play out.

I meant that the boy would be held by the lower back, not the neck. A bit like doing one of those balancing crunches where all the weight is supported on that point.

Time is of essence in the story, so the man has no time for locations. A local shed would do. The problem for both sides is, how far will they go? If one breaks, then the other one may not get what they want.
 

CWatts

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I hate to go there, but the worst thread the kidnapper could make against a pubescent boy is castration. If you want to torture the poor boy it could go "half-way" but allow him to recover and develop into a man normally (just make sure he doesn't go on to invade Poland....).
 

Deepthought

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Definitely not going there. The boy and the kidnapper's children are friends, although how deep the friendship goes is tested due to their loyalty to their father vs friendship and 'doing the right thing'. The man, although a typical evil guy, is also a family guy (not the show!) so it is implied that even he would want to avoid that; he makes the boy's stay as comfortable as possible over the years while using physical discipline each time the boy tries to escape. He also doesn't want his kids to think badly of him, which introduces mental gymnastics on his part but the boy doesn't talk much about that- a lot of kids don't, I think. The whole story is pretty much about these relationship's conflicts, so there can't be anything too extreme.
 

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I don't know why someone would want to do this or what narrative purpose this would serve, but I haven't read your story and I teach anatomy classes, so:

The spine articulates pretty tightly with the ribs of the thoracic region in back. Without getting into the technical jargon, each individual vertebrae has joints it forms with the heads of the ribs on each side, so I'd say there is no way to get one's hand all the way around a human spine in the upper back, unless you have a weapon that would essentially break/cut through those ribs. In the lumbar region, the lower back (no ribs), you'd have to make a very deep incision on each side, and this would damage the kidneys, ureters and other organs that lie against the posterior body wall in that region. Plus, the dorsal aorta--the huge blood distribution artery--lies immediately deep to the vertebral column, and that would be ruptured too by doing this (lots of blood everywhere, even with a corpse).

But without any attachment to the rest of the body, the vertebral column would likely pull apart and the spinal cord would be severed if it took the weight of the rest of the body, not to mention all the attachments to the spinal nerves that emerge in pairs from between the vertebrae. Individual vertebrae also have transverse processes that stick out a bit, and lumbar vertebrae are pretty large in diameter anyway. It wouldn't be easy to get one's hand around the entire vertebral column in that region, even with surgical incisions and considerable damage to the posterior body wall and surrounding tissue.

https://musculoskeletalkey.com/the-spine-2/

I assume the human this would be done to is dead? If not they would be shortly. But why would a human being want to carry someone this way? Even if the dead person is much smaller than the person doing the carrying, and even if the killer is very strong, it wouldn't be the most efficient way of carrying a person in terms of weight distribution or stability. I've never heard of hunters using this technique to transport large animals they've killed. It would make more sense to put the body on some kind of travois to drag it, or if the killer is strong enough to lift the body, to simply do some kind of "fireman's carry" over a shoulder or around the shoulders.

In short, there is no easy way to slip one's hands between muscles and tendons anchoring the spine in place without destroying nerves, organs, and blood vessels that lie alongside and beneath the spine. The victim would bleed to death very quickly, and would end up being paralyzed even if it were possible to do this without rupturing the large blood vessels and organs in the area.
 
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Deepthought

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I see, thank for the detailed response. It seems entirely unfeasible; I'll use something else.
 

MaeZe

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Not with mine. I have no muscles. (Interesting story - I was actually born with no muscles at all. Couldn't even walk. It took almost a year, I think...)

That's why I don't exercise. I know the value of muscles. I don't want to wear them out.
:roll:

Having back pain every time I bend over and knowing there are some kind of exercises that might help but I don't want to get off the couch, I can so relate to this. :)
 

mccardey

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He also doesn't want his kids to think badly of him, which introduces mental gymnastics on his part but the boy doesn't talk much about that- a lot of kids don't, I think. The whole story is pretty much about these relationship's conflicts, so there can't be anything too extreme.
I do like this idea very much. Unless it's a horror story, I wonder if you need to make the workings so extreme. There's a lot of harm that can be done to children (to anyone) by a bully - even a bully who doesn't see themselves as such - with words and threats and power-plays. The child, being a child, will often then act out with more actual physical damage to a smaller child.

I knew of a child who used to be dragged screaming to the gas stove on the threat that his hands would be burned if he didn't admit this or that and apologise; it was all bound up with religion, and so seemed to be backed up with priests and nuns talking about burning in hell for all eternity - it had a real stamp of authority for the poor little kid (five, six, seven years old). No surprises that as a young teenager he set fire to his sister's dress while she was wearing it...
 
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Deepthought

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Yes, it needs to be done. The reason is because the boy, over the course of several years of imprisonment, goes through cycles of escape attempts, subsequent failures, and punishments- this conditions him and thus empty threats won't work. What's interesting is that some kids become more rebellious while others become more withdrawn, when subject to such conditions. In this case, he develops a sort of gambler's fallacy mindset- "this time, it's different!"- and so he never really learns his lesson. This is because he has hope that he only needs to escape once to have all the problems disappear, rather than expected failure. So the threat of disability or some other extreme thing would be needed because the man has to do something to avoid prison and get his daughter back.

That's an interesting phenomenon. Never to actually hurt someone, but with so many threats, it becomes reality. In the story, the boy has his parent's teachings conflict with what he confronts, which leads to a twisted morality- one of the escape attempts involves holding the man's daughter at knifepoint.
 
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