Zombie CSU (28 page)

So, if this process were stimulated by the same force that has reactivated the motor cortex (and other functions), and if it worked at a high-enough rev, then the zombie might be able to form seals around wounds to prevent total blood loss. If this process happened abnormally fast, then the zombie could even keep from bleeding out if shot, stabbed, or had a limb cut off. Mind you, this process would have to work at an incredibly accelerated rate, so the mutation would have to be elaborate and very complex.

And yet zombies can be killed. We know that from nearly all the stories: A bullet in the brain or severe cranial trauma seems to punch their ticket. I asked Dr. Lukacs to comment on this.

“For a zombie to breathe and have a beating heart,” Dr. Lukacs observes, “it will need to have a functioning medulla oblongata and pons. This is part of the brain stem and is located in front of the cerebellum. Destroying this alone would be difficult by trauma since it is in a relatively small area near the cerebellum. A forceful blow between the back of the head and the nape of the neck should damage the cerebellum and the brain stem; which could kill a person (but not necessarily a zombie) since it would damage the respiratory and cardiac centers of the brain stem. So the simple answer of what part of the brain to destroy to stop a zombie would be to destroy the motor cortex, located on the top of the head.”

So, not just any shot to the head?

“No way,” Lukacs assures us. “Zombie destruction would require a lot of accuracy. If I were to train soldiers on where to shoot a zombie in the head with a weapon that had a very localized effect (say doing damage in only the size of a quarter or nickel to a part of the brain or something like an arrow), I would advise them to shoot for the motor cortex region of the head: the top of the head, slightly below the ‘pointy’ part of the head. Another spot that would bring down a zombie would be to sever the spinal cord: all the connections from the brain go through the spinal cord to the lower body (arms, trunk, legs) so damaging that would paralyze everything below the part damaged. If the upper neck portion is damaged, the zombie would become a quadriplegic, versus the lower back causing a paraplegic zombie. Severing the spine will bring a zombie down but it will still have upper brain functions (if there is such a thing in zombies) meaning it can still bite people and move its head about (and have a beating heart and be able to breathe if it could before). So…though it requires more accuracy it’s still pretty much a headshot that will bring down a zombie and ‘kill’ it, while spinal damage will paralyze it but not kill it.”

“There are many reports of gun shot wounds to the head where the patient survived. The most impressive of these are some attempted suicides done with a firearm at point blank range. Though these cases were not fatal, the injury undoubtedly caused brain damage on some level. So, if a point blank head shot to a healthy human brain doesn’t ensure death, why should it in a zombie brain with fewer working brain tissue?”

The Zombie Factor

So, the headshot theory holds water, but it requires more refinement. But in later chapters we’ll also learn that a lot of other types of shots will do the trick, because killing a zombie may, at times, be far less important than merely stopping one.

J
UST THE
F
ACTS

Radioactive Zombies Ate My Brain

In
Night of the Living Dead
, it is suggested that radiation from a returning Venus space probe may have reactivated the central nervous system including (to a very limited degree) the brain. However, Romero never comes right out and says that this is the actual cause and instead drops hints through snatches of TV interviews and news stories.

Can radiation raise the dead?

I put the question to Dr. Eric Gressen, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Jefferson Medical College.
¹⁴
He answered, “Radiation therapy causes free radical formation that destroys DNA by slowing the repair of cancerous and normal tissue and upsetting the duplicating process. The more oxygenated the tissue the more free radicals and the more damage/irradiation effect. Dead brain tissue is lacking oxygen and hence radiation therapy will have little to no effect. Also, the more actively the tissue is growing, the quicker the effect, as the tissue regenerating process is faster and the damage to the DNA is more evident early on. Hence hair loss/skin changes are seen much sooner than in slow growing tissue that exists in the nervous system!

“Now if we give too high a dose when we irradiate the whole brain, what typically can happen is, over time, the myelin that coats the brain can break down, messing up our cross-circuitry, and we can get brain damage from as little as mild memory loss to overt dysfunction. Radiation therapy does not assist in the transmission process of information in the brain but actually ruins it by messing with the myelin and such The repair mechanisms for all DNA damage can be rather complex, but you can imagine that if we are dealing with dead tissue, the brain without oxygen is already decayed and irradiation is not going to liven things up. If anything, over time, the brain typically goes dead from lack of oxygen, hence the term brain dead from oxygen deprivation after heart attack, stroke, etc. Radiation therapy can also alter the blood vessels in the brain, assisting in stroke formation. None of the above regenerates the nervous system.

“Now I mention the chronic problems first because they are most significant to the patient. Acutely during the radiation treatment, you can get swelling of the brain. Since this is in an enclosed cranium, pressure in the brain can cause a whole array of symptoms, headaches, nausea, and vomiting, etc., which are typically controlled with steroids. Squeezing the brain is not likely to wake someone up. The nervous system is a late-responding tissue and hence any effect irradiation can have on this system is going to take months to years—not immediately—so ‘
It’s alive, it’s alive
’ will not occur.”

The Zombie Factor

The foregoing should, I think, effectively bury the concept of radiation from a returning space probe. To be fair to Mr. Romero, he never actually
said
that this was the cause of the dead returning to life. Talking heads on TV screens in the movie speculated as to whether it could be the reason.

J
UST THE
F
ACTS

Pathology of the Dead

Pathology (literally, “the study of disease”) is the diagnosis and study of diseases through examination of bodily fluids, cells, organs, and tissues. There are two primary fields within pathology: a medical specialty in which fluids and tissues are used to obtain useful information for clinical use, or forensics; and the study of the entire disease process.

Forensic pathology is that branch of science built around the need to determine the cause of death in criminal and civil law cases. Forensic pathologists are medical doctors whose specialty is usually anatomical pathology. Many of these are board certified by the American Board of Pathology. Forensic pathologists perform autopsies to determine cause of death. Sometimes this is going to be pretty simple (guy with a knife stuck in his heart), sometimes it’s complicated (guy with a knife in his heart who had taken lots of poison), and sometimes it goes into the realm of diseases, which includes infections.

Pathologists also examine wounds of all kinds, including bites. They examine tissue samples to determine the age of the wound, the presence of infectious agents, and a variety of other tests in order to create a clear picture of what caused the injury. And of course they look for the presence of drugs, toxins, chemicals, and poisons.

Naturally the pathologist works closely with the medical examiner or coroner to contribute evidence to ongoing investigations, or for court cases.

Expert Witness

“There are a couple of things to know about this subject,” remarks Dr. Herschel Goldman, a consulting pathologist and expert witness. “First, if you’ve been in pathology for any length of time you’ve seen just about everything. Early in my career, I worked for nine years at the University of New Mexico hospital, and we had several plague victims come through our department. They tell you about that in medical school, but until you actually have a plague victim on your table there’s a part of you that just doesn’t believe it. Since then, I’ve worked in the States and abroad and I’ve seen more disease victims than you can imagine. To me this is old hat nowadays. This is thirty years in now, and I don’t know how many postmortems I’ve done. Thousands upon thousands. I’m beyond being shocked anymore.”

I asked him how jaded a pathologist would get after a while.

“It’s not that you get jaded
per se
.” he says. “It’s more that you become used to these extremes because there are six billion people in the world and
everyone
will die at some point. It’s a perspective check when you stop and realize that everyone who has ever lived since history began has either already died or will at some point die. At first the thought is morbid, but after a while it’s oddly calming because you realize just how much a part of life death is. It’s a wondrous and endless cycle.”

How does that view withstand global pandemics?

“That’s hard, just like it’s hard to see so many people die in the rush of a tsunami or a hurricane. We view discase on that scale as, yes, part of the natural world, but at the same time we’ve become somewhat armed against them. Just as we’ll build stronger levees in the hopes of withstanding the growing strength of tropical storms we’re also building stronger medicines and better processes for epidemic prevention.”

The Zombie Factor

I asked Dr. Goldman how a pathologist would react to a zombie plague.

“Call me gruesome, but I’d love to take a shot at it. Discovering a new disease would be a nice thing to retire on. Of course, ideally I’d like to discover a new disease that can be prevented or treated. With plagues you often have victims before you have an idea of the pathogen, and in your zombie concept that’s what we’d have. We’d have the zombie, whether he’s still thrashing around in restraints or lying there with a couple of police bullets in his cranium, we’d still have a prime specimen. And if the infection from the bites is as virulent as you say it is in the movies, then we’d have the security guard, too. Two subjects presenting with two different aspects or phases of a new disease.”