Death rattle

For the vocalization style used in heavy metal music, see Death growl.

A death rattle is a gurgling or rattle-like noise produced shortly before death by the accumulation of excessive respiratory secretions in the throat. Those who are dying may lose their ability to swallow, resulting in such an accumulation. While death rattle is a strong indication that someone is near death, it can also be produced by other problems that cause interference with the swallowing reflex, for instance, brain injuries.

It is sometimes misinterpreted as the sound of the person choking to death. In hospice palliative care, drugs such as glycopyrronium, hyoscine hydrobromide or atropine may be used to reduce secretions and minimize this effect.

Death rattle may also be used to refer to machines. A machine (usually an engine) with death rattle typically suffers from a spun bearing or other major mechanical failure, causing it to make unusual noises.

Literary use

Widespread understanding of the significance of the death rattle has led to its common use in literature.

She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times she shuddered, turned her eyes from side to side, recognised everyone for a minute, but at once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse and difficult, there was a sort of rattle in her throat.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

In common parlance we call it a "death rattle." It is one of those terms that through use has passed into the realm of fantasy so that many no longer believe it is an actual biological phenomenon. In fact, it is. Forensics experts tell us that the death rattle is the result of involuntary spasms in the vocal box brought on by the increased acidity in the blood following death. The noise itself is alternately described as a loud bark or whooping rasp emitted by a victim sometime after death.

— Steve Martini, The Judge

"If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business."

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Presently his fingers began to pick busily at the coverlet, and by that sign I knew that his end was at hand. With the first suggestion of the death rattle in his throat he started up slightly, and seemed to listen; then he said:

"A bugle?...It is the king! The drawbridge, there! Man the battlements!—turn out the—"

He was getting up his last "effect"; but he never finished it.

— Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

"Next morning, around six o'clock, the servant entered the room with a candle. He found his master lying on the floor, the pistol beside him, and blood everywhere. He called, he touched him; no answer came, only a rattling in the throat."

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

"Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs."

— Rabindranath Tagore

"I think I may have dropped off into a light sleep, but my senses were still wide awake and I suddenly startled into intense consciousness by a hurried, angry sound, the most awe-inspiring sound anyone can hear, the Death Rattle."

— W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge

"...but the baby's crying, and its death rattle were heard, and they were discovered."

— Wladyslaw Szpilman, The Pianist

"The lament spread from wagon to wagon. It was contagious. And now hundreds of cries at once. The death rattle of an entire convoy with the end approaching."

— Eli Wiesel, Night

Uses in music

• "Death Rattle" is a song by metal band Pantera off of their Reinventing the Steel album.

• In the band Tool's 2006 single "Vicarious", the lyrics say "Stare at the transmitter/Sing to the death rattle."

• In Jethro Tull's "Aqualung", Ian Anderson sings: "And you snatch your rattling last breaths with deep-sea-diver sounds..."

• Comedian David Cross quipped in his 2004 stand up comedy album, It's Not Funny, that he would "rather hear the death rattle of my only child" than listen to Creed.

• The Hole song "Plump" includes the line "He shakes his death rattle / Spittle on his bib."

• The Joe Jackson song "Down to London" contains the following lyric: "stop, what's that sound, it's the death rattle of this rusty old town."

• The Pinback song "Shag" includes the line "Rusty spring uncoils in a baby bottle / Toddler screams overpower the infant death rattle."

Uses in film and television

• In the The Grudge trilogy of films, the cursed Kayako Saeki makes death rattle-like sounds while she haunts her victims.

• In Red vs Blue, the machinima series by Rooster Teeth Productions, the death rattle is almost always used whenever a character dies, and is performed in a very distinctive way. Since all the characters are portrayed by video game avatars, and are only capable of limited types of movements and almost no visual expressions, the death rattle is needed to indicate that a character has actually died and isn't simply lying down or unconscious.

• The character Marla Singer in Fight Club asks the narrator if he wants to stay on the phone and listen to her death rattle after she attempts to commit suicide.

• In The Pianist a Jewish woman crying "Why did I do it?" was explained to have been hiding from the Nazis during the clearing of the ghetto with her baby. Her baby began to cry, she smothered it to avoid detection, but was found because the soldiers heard the death rattle.

• When a murder victim suddenly gurgles in the second episode of Dexter, a medic is called over and informs Dexter and a detective that it is simply a death rattle.

• In the online game Urban Dead, death rattle is a skill which may be purchased by zombie players, and allows the zombie limited speech with others possessing the skill.

• In the season six finale of CSI Miami the victim, Manny Ortega, exerts a death rattle just after being shot to death and leads the medical examiner to call for fire & rescue believing the victim might still be alive.

• In the Red Dwarf episode "Dimension Jump" when Arnold Rimmer suggests to crewmate Dave Lister that they listen to Hammond organ music, Lister replies that he'd prefer "something slightly more melodious, like the long, drawn-out death rattle of a man suffering from terminal flatulence."

• In the NCIS episode Hung Out to dry, a witness to the murder believes he heard a death rattle.

• In an episode of Duckman entitled "Married Alive," after Aunt Bernice sings, Duckman comments "Any chance that was a death rattle?"

• In the Movie "Feast (2005)," the Boss Man describes Jason Mewes after death body twitch as a 'death rattle.'

• In the 2009 film Zombieland, an extended death rattle by actor Bill Murray, portraying himself, is utilized for comedic effect.

External links

• Medical College of Wisconsin End-of-Life/Palliative Education Resource Center - Death Rattle
• East Tennessee State University - pulmonary breath sounds page with a death rattle sound clip