-
Asked by sergent sprinkles to Christopher, Dan, Mohan, Sarah on 15 Mar 2017.
-
Daniel Fovargue answered on 15 Mar 2017:
I would think, if you removed all the organs from someone, there wouldn’t be much left to count as being alive. So, I’ll say 0 seconds.
Removing any one organ could lead to very different results. If your brain was removed, but you left the brain stem, then I guess your heart and breathing would be able to continue, but you wouldn’t really have much of a life.
If your heart disappeared, you may remain conscious for about 5 seconds until you fainted. Then maybe around 5 min until irreversible brain damage started happening as the cells started dying. Maybe 10-15 minutes until you are definitely dead. The 5 min and 10-15 min times are probably similar if your lungs disappeared, by you wouldn’t lose consciousness quite as quickly.
Other organs, you may be able to live without for some time, if you took some sort of medicine or were extremely careful with your diet. The pancreas is an example.
-
-
Sarah De Vos answered on 15 Mar 2017:
You don’t need all your organs; a person can live perfectly well without a gallbladder or spleen, or with one kidney for instance. A heart though is a different matter. You’d only survive minutes without it. People who receive a heart transplant can be without a heart for several hours on the operating table but they are hooked up to all sorts of machines, including a heart bypass machine, which does the heart’s work for them. The skin’s an organ too and I can’t imagine having to adjust to life without a skin; if nothing else it’d be very messy.
-
Mohan K answered on 15 Mar 2017:
Reading the other two replies, what we really want to do is put a brain in a jar, hooked up to lots of machines to see how long we can keep it alive.
(Ok, a cool experiment but possibly very cruel. Also somewhat unrealistic i guess 🙁 )
Comments