How painful would burning at the stake be?

[StormMistress]

Say you were accused of witchcraft and burnt at the stake for it. Just how bad would this method of death be. How long would it take before you fell unconscious and died? Would getting your nerves burnt off be a late saving salvation before death?

[DaveJord]

Well this would be determined by how hot the fire was and quickly and rapidly it burned.

In theory, the pain would be tremendous for about 30 seconds to 1 minute... until all the nerve ending were burned off, but at some point you would react a point of sensory over load.

Sensory overload is when your five senses — sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste — take in more information than your brain can process. When your brain is overwhelmed by this input, it enters fight, flight, or freeze mode...

The pain would become so excruciating, that it would drive you into a panic, then eventually your brain would start shutting down sensory functions as a means of fighting by freezing or attempting to preserve essential bodily functions for as long as possible in order to survive.

Once the nerve endings were burned through there essentially would be no pain, and by this point you would hope that you had gone unconscious. Being slowing burned at the stake would be the worst of all because it would prolong the process by not driving the body into immediate sensory over load. In this event your best course of action would be drive yourself into a complete panic, there by fighting yourself free or trigging your brain into freeze mode and making you pass out.

[TallAnon]

Excruciating pain at the start, combined with panic. Slowly your nerves become null, then comes the asphyxiation from all the smoke which gets you unconscious as your skin burns, your organs boil and your lungs fill with fluid. If you happen to survive, your organs ans lungs will stay in this state and you will die in days regardless.

This isn't something of the past either. In current days there's still people being burned for witchcraft. In Kenya there were 11 confirmed immolations due to suspicions of withcraft in 2008. This continues.

[CrazyGirl2]

Actually, burning at the steak was forbidden during this time period. The famous witch trials took place between Feb 1692 and May 1693 , during which the USA did not exist, and was in fact a colony of England, so British law applied, including the only official, legal method of execution at the time… Hanging! Ergo, the question is moot. While some people very well may die from burning, the format of your question unfortunately renders that fact moot. Nobody was executed for witchcraft by burning, certainly not during British rule of this land. That being said, the myth of the nerve endings burning off so quickly as to render it effectively painless, is just that, MYTH! There are billions of nerve endings in your skin, and the cumulative time to burn them all to the point where you no longer feel pain, would be long after your death from inhalation of scalding hot gasses! The actual cause of death in any fire, is suffocation, because as you breathe in you intake gasses in the high hundreds to low thousands of degrees, thus burning the alveoli and making CO2/02 exchange impossible, and suffocation causes brain function to cease long before the fire would damage your brain past the point where it can sustain life.

[Agape93]

Depends. Usually the smoke will kill you in a few minutes, but you'll still be burning for those few minutes. Mostly your feet. But if the smoke is blown away, you're in for a real bad time. The pain receptors and nerves don't get burned away right away.

Hold our hand over a lighter, about 6 cm from the top of the flame. Hold it as long as you can, then pull away. Now imagine it all over your legs and hands, not being able to get away or stop the pain. Eventually if the smoke doesn't suffocate you, the heat will burn your throat and lungs, killing you.

[Кураж]

You suffocate long before you die from the burn injuries.
There is nothing to breathe but hot air and smoke, if it's hot enough it will fry your lungs pretty much immediately and you won't be able to breathe anymore.

Many burn victims die even though their burns aren't that serious because their lungs are completely fucked.

[dorksided1]

probably one of the worst ways to die. most would go into shock first and fast, anyone knows how painful burning your finger is can you imagine that x10,000. i remember reading about actor paul walker after his accident, where it stated he was burned alive, just horrific way to go, the only thing you can hope is he was unconscious, while it was happening

[AviatorTom]

I'm told that being burned to death is agonizing, possibly the most painful way to die. Just think how painful a simple burn is and add that to cover your entire body, and the 10s of minutes it takes to die. Totally gruesome.

[exitseven]

I have always thought that being burned to death would be the worst way to die but I have heard that your nerves get burned and you really do not feel much after that.

[NathanDavis]

I would think that it is a lot more terrifying and dreadful than it is painful... but who knows really, unless you actually experience it and then survive to tell the tell

[whirled_up_girl]

I would imagine this is a painful way to die, probably one of the most painful and outside probably not likely that there would be enough smoke inhalation to kill a person first.

[Sixgunsound]

I would imagine burning would be the same in any context. I’m assuming this is related to Gardner or Mead or someone in that broader community unless I miss my guess.

[dovendyret]

Now I've been on fire and it was EXTREMELY painful - so there's that.

[ohshee]

I guess if you really want to know light a match put your finger over it for just 10 seconds and then do the. Math

[Xtendable]

I don’t have a burning desire to try this. In fact, this question has me a little hot under the collar

[Jerre]

Extremely painful, perhaps the most painful way to die. Am sure by the time your nerves burned, you would already be dead.

[AydenHazor]

But that is want to experience it but I'd have to wonder at what point you'd enter shock and not feel it at all

[Adam1978]

Very very painful and it all depends on how fast they get that fire going.

[Guy13]

And you ask WHY WE DONT TRUST WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP. Emotional is an understatement 🙀

[jshm2]

Not very. Which is why they whip and brutalised first.

[msc545]

I think it would probably be among the most painful ways to die

[michael1469]

very painful...

[eagle1951]

well I've burned fingers and the like, and you add that pain to your entire body

[Surely]

I imagine the pain would be beyond description.
Hope I never find out!

[driven159]

Only for a short time once your lung tissue is burnt then you are dead