Home Alone: Are injuries in holiday classic survivable?
By Dr. Rob Parkinson, 30 Forensic Engineering
In the 1990 movie Home Alone, eight-year-old protagonist Kevin McCallister defends his family home from a pair of hapless burglars, Marv and Harry – a.k.a. the ‘wet bandits.’
As a biomechanist, the film evokes questions about whether Marv and Harry could realistically recover from the injuries inflicted by Kevin in time to reemerge in New York in 1992 as the ‘sticky bandits’ for the film’s sequel.
Let’s look at a play-by-play, by injury type.
Slips and Falls
Kevin’s initial defence during a Chicago cold snap was a complete icing of the home’s access points.
If a person isn’t aware a surface is covered in ice, they’ll walk in a manner requiring an amount of friction that the surface cannot provide. That leads to falls.
In a typical slip and fall, a person will fall rearward or to the side. This can mean injury to the upper extremities, as they attempt to brace their fall to protect their head; or to the lower extremity if it becomes trapped beneath the falling body. If a person can’t protect themselves in a fall, injuries can be more severe because head accelerations can be large enough to cause fracture and brain bleeds.
Given there was no indication Marv and Harry were unable to brace themselves due to strength limitations or intoxication, their movements as shown in the film don’t support the occurrence of fractures or severe injuries in the early going. So, the assault on the McCallister home could continue.
And the film’s falls don’t stop outdoors. The bandits also experience falls from height when struck by the paint cans while trying to climb the stairs in pursuit of Kevin. As a fall height increases, the impact energy of that fall also increases, and the number and severity of injuries can increase. Luckily, when Harry fell from the stairs, he landed on Marv, and the only trauma was mental – noticing he’d knocked out a gold tooth!
Falling Objects
After the ice, the anti-heroes experience multiple head impacts during their chase, including Marv’s unexpected encounter with a falling clothes iron.
Impacts to the face can cause multiple injuries. Facial bones are weaker than those of the skull itself, so they are the first to fracture. Blunt facial trauma often results in fracture to the nasal bones, orbital bones (around the eye), and cheekbones (the zygomatic arches). These bones, set out from the face, are not as strong as others.
Head impacts that don’t cause skull fracture and brain bleeds can cause mild traumatic brain injury or concussion. Looking at the falling paint can, assuming the can weighs 5.5 kilograms, a drop height of just over one metre would possess enough energy to result in a concussion, assuming all the impact energy was transferred to the head. So, it would not be surprising for the bandits to at least sustain concussions.
Additionally, prior head injuries can diminish a person’s tolerance to impact. Marv and Harry don’t appear particularly astute so it’s not a stretch to assume they’d experienced past physical mishaps leading to brain injuries – increasing their vulnerability to Kevin’s assaults.
The Crowbar
One important detail of the movie is Marv’s crowbar, which plays multiple roles.
Marv carries the crowbar throughout the film. When people slip and fall, they preferentially hold onto whatever objects they’re carrying instead of protecting themselves. So, Marv’s crowbar would have reduced his ability to protect himself in a fall.
The crowbar is also a weapon, but it’s only really used between the two burglars. Marv strikes Harry in the torso while trying to hit a tarantula Kevin’s thrown on them. In assaults with focal weapons like crowbars, injuries tend to be focussed to the narrow area of the strike – rib fractures and underlying organ injury may have resulted when Marv hit Harry. But Harry bounced right back up, which is a biomechanical hiccup in the movie.
Plus, Harry does not raise his hands in defense of Marv’s attack, which contradicts known human behaviour. Typically, a person being struck will show signs of defensive wounds on their hands and arms that occur when they try and protect their head, face and body.
Later in the movie, Harry hits Marv with the crowbar multiple times, and Marv actually raises his arms to defend himself. This would result in more injuries on the arms and hands.
Would they make it to New York?
Home Alone’s antagonists faced tough but survivable challenges.
We’d expect injuries across both bandits’ bodies, including superficial and soft tissue injuries. However, they might be able to escape fractures or any significant head injuries that would result in a fatality or their inability to finish what they started.
That could allow Marv and Harry to reemerge in New York in 1992 for the sequel (an unscientific approach to the conclusion but it is the season of miracles)!
Parkinson is the vice president and Practice Lead of the Biomechanics & Personal Injury group at 30 Forensic Engineering
-- Canadian Underwriter