Trigger Warning: Ways a character might end their life

[waltdee]

This is a weird question, but I swear that it's for a story idea. If disturbing subject matter triggers you, read no further.

My question is this: Is there a way, other than swallowing a bullet or slitting one's wrist that a man might attempt to take their life and puts them in the hospital for a short time, but not affect their mind, vocal cords, or ability to move around?

I'm thinking stepping out in front of a train/traffic and jumping off something. People jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and survive, but it fucks them up for months... years...

Overdose is another method that I've thought of.

Can anyone think of another way?

 

[Bubo_bubo]

Hanging. If you do not put the knot at just the right angle, death comes by slow asphyxiation rather than breaking the neck. So there is time for others to intervene.
Any kind of drug or poison if people arrive quick enough on the scene to get the person's stomach pumped.
And in fact slitting once wrists also, certainly if the person goes "across the street" rather than "down the road".

In fact, I think just about any method that doesn't cause immediate and severe head trauma, or cuts a major artery, can be subject of a botched suicide attempt.

 

[Probus888]

How about getting into a bar fight - once the character's getting beaten up, the other people there step in to stop it?

 

[Bubo_bubo]

It might also be helpful to have a bit more context. Are we talking about a situation where someone is really intent on it, but is about to be saved by others, or someone intent on it but halfway changes their mind, or not really intent on it and unconsciously sabotages their suicide attempt?

 

[Jmanchu]

Pills. I'd say the easiest method based on what you're asking with the little context you provided. Pills is my final answer. Especially if found by someone soon enough and treated in a hospital can have that higher recovery rate with short hospital visit and a believable full recovery that you're looking for. There aren't a lot of ways that doesn't risk serious permanent damage.

Being hit by a train or traffic would more likely than not be a not-so-short hospital visit with at least one broken bone. Especially if we're talking suicide attempts.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Any unsuccessful attempt can easily lead to a spell in a psych ward, without any physical or mental damage required.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Pills. I'd say the easiest method based on what you're asking with the little context you provided. Pills is my final answer. Especially if found by someone soon enough and treated in a hospital can have that higher recovery rate with short hospital visit and a believable full recovery that you're looking for. There aren't a lot of ways that doesn't risk serious permanent damage.

Depending on the pills - some, like paracetamol, will cause irreparable long-term damage.

 

[EarlyMorningLight]

Pills. I'd say the easiest method based on what you're asking with the little context you provided.

I’ll throw in a caveat here. As OP mentioned that the character is a man, pills are a relatively uncommon method for men who attempt suicide. Men are much more likely to go for more violent methods, like gunshots or hanging.

I’d say a botched hanging attempt with a bad knot or insufficient drop could work. Or maybe he mishandles the gun and ends up shooting himself in the leg before he can go for a headshot.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Snakebite, have him capture a rattler or cottonmouth and intentionally allow it to bite him over and over, say on his chest. The death wouldn't take too long and would be dreadfully painful. That's how a manly man would off himself.

 

[Rustyoznail]

You've mentioned it, but stepping in front of a train is fairly common here. Guns aren't common.

A long walk off a short pier happens.

 

[Jmanchu]

I’ll throw in a caveat here. As OP mentioned that the character is a man, pills are a relatively uncommon method for men who attempt suicide. Men are much more likely to go for more violent methods, like gunshots or hanging.

I’d say a botched hanging attempt with a bad knot or insufficient drop could work. Or maybe he mishandles the gun and ends up shooting himself in the leg before he can go for a headshot.

I gotcha. The more common ways a man is likelier to try are the brutal ways with high results, and far higher likelihood of permanent injury. Uncommon doesn't mean it doesn't happen though. Guys do sometimes go for the overdose methods too.

Yeah, maybe botched suicide attempt for your story, OP like Light and other people say.

Depending on the pills - some, like paracetamol, will cause irreparable long-term damage.

True, some are a lot more likely to cause permanent damage than others. But I think that anything that can kill risks, in no small chance, permanent or long lasting damage.

 

[Rollinbones]

Pulled a bloke out of a car once who'd tried to off himself by putting the exhaust in through an old vacuum cleaner tube duct taped to the exhaust. he was blue in the lips and not breathing but we were just there in time. No permanent brain damage which meant he was not without enough oxygen for less than three minutes. Quite remarkable really, the only other person i'd seen survive that kind of suicide was a complete mindless vegie. Old mate was drunk when he tried and hadn't sealed the window he put the tube in through very well. He passed out from the piss and was just lucky i guess.
Best one ever was a guy who put a chain around his neck and out the window of his car attached to a steel post. He then floored the accelerator and drove off flat out hoping to rip his head off. Maths is important though. YOu should always measure twice. he smashed into the brick wall of his garage before the chain even lost slack and knocked himself out on the windscreen.

 

[lovecraft68]

Any unsuccessful attempt can easily lead to a spell in a psych ward, without any physical or mental damage required.

True story, way back in my wild days, I punched through one of those small wired glass windows you find in doors in hospitals and other buildings, pretty impressive in a moron sort of way, but I gashed my wrist, and the friend that was with me rushed me to the ER where they kept trying to get me to admit I slit my wrist(north to south the serious way) and didn't believe me or my friend and this was with cuts and tiny shards of glass in my knuckles, finally someone showed up, looked at the damage and said stupidity isn't an honest attempt at suicide.

 

[tenyari]

People jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and survive, but it fucks them up for months... years...

Bridge jumping is actually one of the most horridly painful ways to go.

You hit the water so hard you break a large number of bones, but don't die. Then you are in extreme pain and yet unable to swim. The pain keeps drowning from being quick... so in sheer agony and unable to swim, you slowly drown.

If you don't need your protagonist to be in massive physical injury - pills / overdose.

My most well known story, not on literotica due to the protagonist being 17, has long had a 'sequel' in my mind that begins with a 'trucker' pulling off the freeway to 'take a piss by the side of the road' only to discover he's pissing on a "dead body" - which is the main character of my 'Alandra' story. She's been dumped there by the police. She's "almost dead" but not fully dead - in a more grim way then Wesley of Princess Bride.

They've gouged out her eyes, beat her to a pulp, assaulted her, and left to on the side of the road just across a border.

This is "near death by being born non-white". Which happens ALL THE TIME. And the sequel was to be the investigation by another character into who this is, how the got there, and their attempts to help her recover while she's in a coma in a hospital in either Mexico or The US side of a new US / Confederate border that comes about in the time between the old story ending and her getting out of jail.

In the original story, which I finished in 2004 I think, it ends with her losing an eye in a gun fight, but in the epilogue, it's the other eye that is a fake glass eye. And she casually mentions that her scars and injuries came 'after'. This sequel would have explained that, if I were to ever write it, and feature her as roughly a 19 year old. It's near future so this kind of injury is 'regrowable'.

I never wrote that sequel because it was too bleak even though it has an optimistic happier ending - the journey to that end is bleak and violent.


Which brings another angle: if you're story is future or near future, you can expand your list of things a lot.

Here's one people don't think of because SciFi gets it wrong all the time: getting tossed out an airlock - this will take a long time to kill you. Unlike in Hollywood, we don't explode or turn to ice in seconds. Think hours. So if someone gets you back inside after a bit, you're in the hospital.

Likewise: someone blows a hole in the side of the ship. If that happened on a ship the size of say... the Star Trek Enterprise - it would take YEARS to lose atmosphere to the point where you'd have trouble. YEARS. Folks could repair that by taping fingernail clippings together with glue in the amount of time they'd have... So yeah. BUT if you're near where it happens, you could have the 'out in space for an hour' situation above...


Electrical injury works in modern and sciFi - with SciFi adding new ways to get electrocuted. Especially if people have cyber implants. These would run off body electricity so no - that won't happen. BUT if for some reason you have a 'cable jack' - wired interface to a system, You could get zapped from that. After all, in the real world about 3 people have died from the headphones they had on when using an older iPhone. That's 3 people worldwide - so the odds are insanely low. But it's happened.

Animal attacks - you could chase a bear, moose, or hippo. The hippo kills more humans than any other non-microscopic animal on earth. It is the most 'dangerous animal' known to humanity. You are safer getting in a pool with great white sharks and opening up bags of blood, than you are being within 50 yards of any living loose hippo. HUNDREDS of people die every year from hippo attacks.

Every couple of years some fool climbs an enclosure in a zoo and goes after a wild animal. And a couple of times a year people in parks chase moose, bison, and other large animals because stupid. But a few years back I think there was one person who tried to do this at a zoo for the purpose of attempting suicide.

Suicide by dragon. Komodo dragon that is. Or is it a related large lizard. There's one island out there with these things. And locals live on it. They are extremely dangerous not just because they rip you to shreds, but they spit a venon that is either super diseased or super poisonous (I forget). Locals have fenced off the half of the island with the dragons. But there's at least one idiot a year who hops the fence because stupid... And a few of them survive...

There are also tons of fools that enter toxic ponds. Be they hot water gysers in parks, steam pools near volcanos, etc... Even some fools that go for a swim in chemical toxic dump waters...

Diving. Especially cave diving. Some famous cave lakes are full of the bodies of idiots. A few of those people are rescued in time - and might have the bends, or if there were toxins or whatever. But this one is less likely to be survived. The problem is that while it's a slow way to go, most rescuers also die, so you usually get left behind.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

Suicide by dragon. Komodo dragon that is. Or is it a related large lizard. There's one island out there with these things. And locals live on it. They are extremely dangerous not just because they rip you to shreds, but they spit a venon that is either super diseased or super poisonous (I forget). Locals have fenced off the half of the island with the dragons. But there's at least one idiot a year who hops the fence because stupid... And a few of them survive...

As regards this, they don't spit venom, but at one time it was thought their bite was so septic as to kill by sepsis alone. It's not actually all that clear. Still big scary scaly mofos.

 

[tenyari]

As regards this, they don't spit venom, but at one time it was thought their bite was so septic as to kill by sepsis alone. It's not actually all that clear. Still big scary scaly mofos.

Thanks. Yeah I was trying to remember what it was.

What got me though, was that there's a regular stream of people intentionally choosing to mess with those animals. There's a number of people who get hurt by accident - but the people who get hurt on purpose, it's locals that know the dangers and not tourists. So it went on my list of 'ways to try and end it all'...

 

[stickygirl]

Depending on the pills - some, like paracetamol, will cause irreparable long-term damage.

Yup - a seriously crap way of stepping out. Unless they drown in their own vomit, most get to hospital and need a new liver

 

[stickygirl]

This is a weird question, but I swear that it's for a story idea. If disturbing subject matter triggers you, read no further.

My question is this: Is there a way, other than swallowing a bullet or slitting one's wrist that a man might attempt to take their life and puts them in the hospital for a short time, but not affect their mind, vocal cords, or ability to move around?

I'm thinking stepping out in front of a train/traffic and jumping off something. People jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and survive, but it fucks them up for months... years...

Overdose is another method that I've thought of.

Can anyone think of another way?

Papercut - ask any medic
Driving into a wall might work - less chance of being psyched. Make it an old banger pre-airbags

 

[MillieDynamite]

Have them killed by standing on train tracks in a (misguided) effort to prove, once and for all, that trains don't exist.

 

[Bubo_bubo]

The Négresses Vertes song Hey Maria has a fair few methods:
Un soir d'avril devant sa tele One April night in front of her TV
Maria desemparee Maria distraught
Ouvre sa fenetre en pleurant Opens her window crying
Et s'envoie pour le neant and sails into the void
Un diablotin ne mange pas d'pain An imp doesn't eat bread
Fini le temps do suicide en blanc Finish the time with suicide in white
D'overdose de medicaments From overdose of pills
Et le tranche-veine est revolu And the slice of vein is in the past
Les medecins ils n'en veulent plus The doctors don't want anymore
Quant a mourir a petit feu As for the little fire dying
Oui ca devient bien Yes it turns out well
Trop dangereux Too dangerous
Hey Maria Hey Maria
Tu es morte et moi je suis la You're dead and me, I'm there
Mey Maria You're dead and me, I'm there
Tu es morte je suis toujours la. You're dead, I'm always there.
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
L'acte d'auto-crime The self-inflicted crime
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
Et mon coeur s'abime And my heart is damaged
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
L'acte d'auto-crime The self-inflicted crime
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
Et mon coeur s'abime And my heart is damaged
Les diablotins ne meurent pas The imps aren't
D'faim paupers
Il why a tant de gens competents There are so many competent people
Qui mettent fin a leurs angoisses who put an end to their agonies
En les noyant dans le sang and drown them in the blood
Sur le periph' a toute berzingue On the freeway pedal to the metal
On se scratche la gueule One scratches the mouth
Comme des dingues like loonies
28 tonneaux youpi zobi 28 barrels yippee dicky
T'as pas de voiture, prends le metro You don't have a car, take the Metro
Mais dans la gueule, il faut But in the mouth, it takes
See'qui faut what it takes
Ouais dans la gueule, il faut Yep in the mouth, it takes
See'qui faut. what it takes
Hey Maria Hey Maria
Tu es morte et moi je suis la You're dead and me, I'm there
Mey Maria You're dead and me, I'm there
Tu es morte je suis toujours la. You're dead, I'm always there.
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
L'acte d'auto-crime The self-inflicted crime
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
Et mon coeur s'abime And my heart is damaged
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
L'acte d'auto-crime The self-inflicted crime
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
Et mon coeur s'abime And my heart is damaged
Vrai qu'on mourra un jour It's true one will die someday
Ou l'autre or another
Vu que nous ne sommes pas eternels Seeing that we aren't eternal
Alors, bon, comme l'a dit l'autre So, fine, as said the other
Pourquoi devancer l'appel Why be ahead of the call
Vieillir, vieillir avant d'mourir To age, to age before dying
Si ce n'est pas rigolo If this isn't comical
Ca me fait crever de rire This makes me die of laughing
See'est aussi con que je respire It's also stupid that I breathe
Oui ca me fait crever de rire Yes it makes me die of laughing
See'est aussi con que je respire It's also stupid that I breathe
Ouais ca me fait crever de rire Yep this makes me die of laughing
Hey Maria Hey Maria
Tu es morte et moi je suis la You're dead and me, I'm there
Mey Maria You're dead and me, I'm there
Tu es morte je suis toujours la. You're dead, I'm always there.
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
L'acte d'auto-crime The self-inflicted crime
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
Et mon coeur s'abime And my heart is damaged
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
L'acte d'auto-crime The self-inflicted crime
See'est de l'egoisme It's from egotism
Et mon coeur s'abime And my heart is damaged

 

[Bubo_bubo]

The English translation is a bit lacking but hell.

 

[waltdee]

All... interesting ideas. Thanks for sharing. I think I've decided on slitting wrists or overdosing. The human body can lose 30% of its blood and still survive. 40% is iffy. 50% or more is fatal.