Old-fashioned "short drop" executions caused death by strangulation as the rope pressed on the windpipe and arteries to the brain, a 10-second demise

only if the noose was correctly applied. Witnesses of public hangings often reported victims "dancing" in pain at the end of the rope, struggling violently for many minutes as they asphyxiated. In some cases strugglers were cut down and resuscitated, even after 15 minutes

in 1868, the "long-drop" method took over

Here the length had to be tailored to the victim's weight, as too great a force "could rip the head clean off, a professionally embarrassing outcome for the hangman."

Yet an analysis as late as 1992 of the remains of 34 prisoners found that only in about half of cases was the cause of death at least partially spinal trauma, with a fifth showing the classic "hangman's fracture." The rest died in part from asphyxiation.