I don't believe in God, per se. There is no magical element that saves people from random human killers such as lightning bolts, hurricanes, or gunshots to the head. There is, in short, no rhyme or reason to who is saved and who isn't. However, I firmly suspect that there is a collective consciousness out there. I believe it is a manifestation of this energy, input into a victim of one of these occurrences that could be most beneficial when they are staring into the sheer odds of medical outcomes. For instance, if someone has been in a loving family all their life, has a healthy self esteem, may have people sending good thought or even prayers along, the comatose person has a better chance of shaking it than a loner about whom no one cares. In the former case when the victim does not come out, presses the issue of plug pulling, is perhaps clinically dead, people might say “It was God's will,” or “he was not meant to live,” that it was “his time and he served his purpose on earth.” Conversely, interestingly, if he lives, they might say “It was not his time,” that “God had more plans for him on earth.” Rationales cover either outcome, and the acutely religious appear to need it to perhaps deal with it in their minds. In the latter case the inspirational words have a two-pronged effect; setting the recovery right in the well—wisher's mind, while also teaching the survivor, the redeemed, to not take their recovery for granted. The words can make them work harder for a productive life.
There is no magic that lets five percent of the 20,000 people annually who get shot in the head survive, three percent of whom live functional lives.1 It is largely logistics; it's location, location. . . Patricia Noah (mother of Trevor) who happens to be ultra-religious, having taken great pains at times to get to church, was shot in the back of the head by her drunk, possessive second husband. As Noah describes it in his memoir Born a Crime, the bullet “went through the back of her head, entering below the skull at the top of her neck. It missed the spinal chord by a hair, missed the medulla oblongatta, and traveled through her head just underneath the brain, missing every major vein, artery, and nerve.”2 It happens, three percent of the time. She beat astronomical odds. The fact that she had led a pious life and had the thought of god (ie. All those like-minded parishoners conveying witting or unwitting prayers) in her corner helped. My guess is that if Abel, the murderous husband, who Noah refers to as “the devil,” would not have made it into even the five percent club.
Saturday October 8, 2011 Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot point blank in the back of the head. She made it to five percent, as her speech is today noticebly slow. According to a professor of neurosurgery at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the type of bullet and its course though the brain are key factors in determining prognosis. Giffords was fortunate on both counts. The weapon used was a Glock 19 9-milimeter semi-automatic handgun. The bullet entered the left side of the rear of her head, exiting through her forehead. Bullets that go “through and through” are most likely not designed to break apart, expanding and leaving smaller fragments to damage tissue vessels, or nerves in its path. The bullet was confined to the left hemisphere of her brain, hence her loss of some speech function. It happens. . .to 5 out of 20,000 people a year. I don't know how religious Giffords is. To be in congress its a safe bet she's ethically a good person. It does not matter though, she was lucky. It happens sometimes, and the odds that it will happen do not scream that there is any magic going on anywhere. God did not guide that bullet.
At 12:38 Friday, November 22, 1963, a similar gunshot wound was inflicted into the head of another politician. Mr. Abraham Zapruder became the most sought after civilian photographer of the era, I'm sure, when he filmed President Kennedy's motorcade wind through Dealey Plaza in Dallas with his 8 mm home movie camera. Abe unwittingly ensured himself the public scrutiny of his movies for decades to come. We could watch JK's head pitch backwards, the fodder for a plethora of “conspiracy theories.” The two shooter theory emerged, brilliantly parodied three decades later on Seinfeld. At the time a thought was that one bullet entered the front and one from the back. Calculations determined how the projectile might slow, its kinetic energy and momentum as it passed tissue in the president's head. Mr. Zapruder heard the first shot, saw Kennedy raise his arm, and initially thought the president was miming being shot, a very sick and dangerous joke for someone with secret service. It is a natural human response to deny the unimaginable until it is there for all to see. A second shot rang out, this one hitting Kennedy in the back of the head. In 1964 the Warren Commission determined that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing both shots from the sixth floor SE window of the Texas School Book Depository. The weapon Oswald used was reported to be a rifle designed for the military, specifically the Italian infantry. It dispensed 10.5 g bullets at a flight rate of 658 m/s.
Kennedy did not make the five percent. The bullet traveled a “through and through” trajectory from back to front or front to back, or both, a point that in some morbid curiosity will be interminable in debate. The bullets were from a weapon of war, traveling and entering the brain at great speed, designed to fragment. Subtract decades of medical technology a knowledge of the brain from the other two examples, Noah in the early 90s and Gifford's in 2011. No doubt prayers were being said by thousands for the dying president who was rushed to Parkland Hospital in Dallas. But one should ask can coherent, cognizant prayers be said by Americans in trauma in the last moments of Kennedy's life. He was dead on arrival at Parkland where he was tended to by trauma doctor Red Duke. Duke, seeing the president was dead, that they could not revive a corpse, went to the aid of injured Governor John Connally who suffered three broken ribs, a punctured lung and a shattered wrist. Seated in the motorcade's jump seat, the first bullet fired lodged in his leg. I'll say it again; location, location, location. If that limousine had been traveling faster, if the president had been sitting differently, if Oswald had not had as good a sight, history would have been altered.
1Dr. Bizahn Arabi, director of nerotrauma, Maryland Shock Trauma Center, 2006
2Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah, 2019, Spiegel & Grau