How far can a strangled woman's tongue protrude?

Answer 1

The human tongue is approximately four inches in length - however the the muscle which attaches to the tongue, directly to its posterior, is much longer. Slow ligature strangulation rarely produces a terminal ''epiglottis eruption'' which can produce obscenely gruesome results. A classic example was the strangling of Australian 22 year old - Mary Yvonne Laenen - in 1978. When found naked and dead in her car, homicide detectives were horrified to note that her entire tongue-epiglottis complex had ''erupted'' and the tip of the tongue was - incredibly - 181/3 inches below her lower lip. This placed it over an inch beyond her navel. - Such incidents are extremely rare, but they are anatomically possible.