Critics of the Book of Mormon have questioned how Shiz could have physically struggled after his head was cut off. According to Charles Pyle, there is nothing fanciful about his episode. This neurological reflex is known as decerebrate rigidity, and occurs when the upper brain stem becomes disconnected from the brain itself. Dr. Gary M. Hadfield, M.D., published in BYU Studies, (1993) 33:324, this statement:
Shiz's death struggle illustrates the classic reflex posture that occurs in both humans and animals when the upper brain stem (midbrain/mesencephalon) is disconnected from the brain. The extensor muscles of the arms and legs contract, and this reflect action could cause Shiz to raise up on his hands.
According to B. H. Roberts, (New Witnesses for God, Vol. 3, pp. 556-557):
Mr. G. W. Wightman, of the Seventeenth Lancers of the British Light Brigade, and a survivor of the wild charge at Balaclava, relates, in the "Electric Magazine" for June 1892, . . . the still more remarkable case of Sergeant Talbot's death:
"It was about this time that Sergeant Talbot had his head clean carried off by a round shot, yet for about thirty yards farther the headless body kept the saddle, the lance at the charge firmly gripped under the right arm."
For critics to say that a similar, though somewhat subdued, phenomenon does not occur in some human decapitations such as that of Shiz, is asking too much! Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, in his "Decerebrate Rigidity, and Reflex Coordination of Movements," in the Journal of Psychology, 22 (1898):319, graphically describes the occurrence of this phenomenon in both animals and human subjects. Several others of his works also mention the same. John D. Spillane's book also luridly describes the onset of decerebrate rigidity in some patients due to accident or another cause:
the limbs may be disposed in a manner resembling the decrebrate or decorticate postures of the experimental animal. It will be recalled that section of the brain stem between the superior collicus and pons produces a degree of spasticity of the antigravity muscles of all four limbs which enable the animal to "stand." In the human patient decerebrate rigidity is often incomplete, but in varying degree and distribution, rigid extension of the four limbs may be seen. The upper limbs are internally rotated at the shoulders, the elbows extended and the writes flexed. The legs are straight and, if there is spasm of the adductors, they may be crossed. (An Atlas of Clinical Neurology, London: Oxford University Press, 1975, 2nd ed., p. 372)
This posture could easily, if the person it afflicted were lying face-down, have the appearance of rising up on his or her hands.
The phenomenon of decerebrate rigidity is also discussed under "Decerebrate" in The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition, 4:328): "a state in which the limbs are extended and certain skeletal muscles rigidly contracted."
So the eventful decapitation of Shiz in the Book of Mormon is medically plausible. Since the Book of Mormon record is silent on just how much of the head was smitten off, if any, and since the term smitten off is used in the Bible to indicate the piercing of Sisera's head with a tent peg--Judges 4:21; 5:26-27, the Book of Mormon is once again remarkably verified. [D. Charles Pyle, "Review of 'The Book of Mormon Vs. the Bible (or Common Sense),'" http:\\[www.linkline.com]\personal\dcpyle\reading\bodineco.htm, pp. 22-23]