Let's Examine Tyler Rake's Survival Chances From A Realistic Point Of View In The Extraction Series

The action genre frequently asks audiences to suspend their disbelief when it comes to the invulnerability of the hero of their favorite bone-crushing franchise. The advent of metahumans and superheroes made it even easier to accept that major losses could be avoided thanks to the incredibly high survival rate of characters ripped straight out of the comic book world. James Mangold did finally inject a healthy dose of reality into the superhero genre with "Logan," showing that even the most indestructible member of the X-Men could die. 

More mortal men followed that weren't equipped with special powers, they were just extraordinary fighters with elite training and legendary prowess. Director Chad Stahelski put stuntwork and gun-fu first to help reinvigorate the modern action movie with the "John Wick" franchise. But by the time Winston (Ian McShane) shot John (Keanu Reeves) off of the roof of the Continental in "John Wick" Chapter 3 – Parabellum," things were starting to look a little ridiculous. Even the Baba Yaga couldn't possibly survive the beatings he's taken over the entire series, which ended up being proved correct if the ending of "John Wick 4" is to be believed. 

2020's massively popular action extravaganza "Extraction" saw star Chris Hemsworth go from Thor, the God of Lightning, to mercenary-for-hire Tyler Rake — an elite soldier sent on impossible missions to extract high-value targets. Hollywood stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave stepped in to direct the first film and he also returns for "Extraction 2," the high-octane sequel hitting Netflix this weekend. Picking up where they left off, the stuntman-turned-director subsequently put Hemsworth through a gambit of intense action sequences. 

By the end of the original, Hemsworth's character gets shot in the neck, sending him hurtling off a bridge to assumably drown in the waters below. It's an ending that's intentionally left ambiguous by Hargrave. But could Tyler Rake really have survived his injuries? It turns out, the data is actually in his favor.

For Hemsworth fans, no one really wants to see the beloved Australian actor actually succumb to his injuries. Originally, Hargrave didn't necessarily want Tyler Rake to make it out of the first "Extraction" alive, but test audiences weren't exactly on board with that decision, resulting in a final scene where Rake makes the briefest of appearances making it look like he may have lived to see another day. 

After a quick recap, the beginning of "Extraction 2" shows Rake being pulled out of the water and taken directly into emergency surgery. He's weak with atrophy and in a coma, but he's breathing. So, how long could Rake actually have survived underwater? The American Academy of CPR and First Aid states emphatically that it can "only take a few seconds to drown, but it can take up to three minutes for a person submerged in water to become unconscious." The body will generally start to shut down vital organs like the heart and lungs as soon as it starts sensing oxygen deprivation, otherwise known as hypoxia. If medical attention isn't received quickly, most drowning victims expire within an hour. 

Rake only appears to be in the water for a very short amount of time, and the fact that he was virtually unconscious after the blood loss from being shot in the neck, he wasn't panicking which allowed for less water to fill up in his lungs. The coma Rake is in at the start of "Extraction 2" could have been induced by his doctors, or it could have been due to a loss of brain function causing a comatose state from being in the water too long. According to Science Daily, a drowning victim only has a five percent chance of survival, meaning that Rake was extraordinarily lucky. Maybe a sequel wasn't so unlikely, after all. 

Just when Rake thinks he's finally managed to successfully extract Ovi (Rudraksh Jaiswal), the son of an Indian drug lord from the clutches of his father Amir (Priyanshu Painyuli), he is wounded by one of Amir's men at the very end of the first movie. It turns out, getting shot in the neck isn't as bad as it may seem at first, provided you receive proper medical attention before too much of that precious red stuff flows out of your artery. In his book "Gunshot Wounds," Dr. Vincent J.M. DiMaio determined that you have an 80-95% survivability rate as long as the wound isn't to the head or to the heart. 

DiMaio found that 80 percent of potential targets on the body would not cause death, a conclusion also supported by The New York Times. In fact, since Tyler Rake was admitted into the hospital with a heartbeat after being resuscitated, his chances of survival jumped up to a solid 95 percent. (Feel free to refer to this stat in regards to amnesiac Jason Bourne's miraculous recovery in "The Bourne Identity" as well.)

Looking at neck wounds specifically, the National Library of Medicine conducted a study reviewing 110 patients with similar bullet wounds to the one Rake suffered. They found that there was a mortality rate of only 2.7% as long as the time from the injury to admittance in a hospital did not exceed 6 hours. The policy of "selective management" was used to focus on the patients who were determined to be "stable and lack physical signs of obvious major neck injury." The trajectory of the bullet was also used to select patients with the highest chance of survival. Looking at all of this together, the odds were clearly in Rake's favor to make it into at least one sequel. 

When "Extraction 2" begins, Rake is believed to be dead until he's resurrected by a mysterious agent named Alcott (Idris Elba) to lead a mission that leads to one of the all-time bloodiest prison breaks. The 21-minute sequence almost doubles the 12-minute oner action sequence from the original and sees Hemsworth battling his way out of a full-on riot where every inmate is targeting Rake as he tries to rescue the wife and children of a Georgian crime lord named Dorit Radiani (Tornike Bziava). In the much-publicized brawl, Hemsworth's arm was intentionally lit on fire during an extended fight out in the yard where the flames are literally extinguished on some poor stuntman's face. A shank knife is also plunged into his leg, just after Rake (still recovering from his previous injuries) is brutally beaten with a lead pipe.

From there, the prison break leads to an extended train sequence that pits Rake up against a helicopter spewing bullets out of a high-power Gatling gun. And that's just the first hour. Whether Rake survives the rest of "Extraction II" is anyone's guess, but with a 99.9 percent chance of survival after a crash, it probably would've been smarter for him to just stay on board the train. Just as long as he sits in the back. 

"Extraction 2" is now available on Netflix.