According to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, in humans, “breathing an oxygen deficient atmosphere can have serious and immediate effects, including unconsciousness after only one or two breaths. The exposed person has no warning and cannot sense that the oxygen level is too low.” In the US, at least 80 people died from accidental nitrogen asphyxiation between 1992 and 2002. Hazards with inert gases and the risks of asphyxiation are well-established.
It would be a bit less terrible a method if it actually worked that way. Still depraved, but slightly less.
But it doesn’t. Took 30 minutes for the guy to die, supposedly.
Vets swore off using this technique a while ago because of how clearly-distressed animals were when it was performed on them.
There’s a big difference between the kind of freak industrial accident you’re describing and intentional administration via a mask. And either way, we literally do not know if it is peace or torture.
I’ll agree that dying against your will is torture. And for animals that have time to know something is wrong and can’t escape it, they’re going to be distressed. I’m curious about the discrepancy between why this reportedly took so long when work safety experts warn that a couple of breaths of an oxygen deficient atmosphere can induce unconsciousness.
But I’m only answering the question of why we would think this is painless and then assertion that we can’t know. It sure sounds like we do know. But I’ll stay open minded and keep reading.
The article said that the guy held his breath for as long as possible. It really would be torture to be strapped down and know that the next breath you take will kill you. Even if the actual experience is completely painless, trying to hold your breath as long as you can in order to stay alive for just a few more seconds sounds like a nightmare.
That’s horrifying. Holding your breath until you think holding it any longer will kill you because not doing so definitely will. At least with the injection there was absolutely nothing you could do to delay or stop the process once it started.
I mean, the citation is, to start with, not a medical organization. They’re reporting on workplace incidents, essentially, and making big assumptions. Also no mentioned of the violent seizures.
Also, not to be captain obvious, but reports of the experience, definitionally, come from people who survived, which is another layer of it being a vastly different experience than dying that may not even be terribly analogous. Surviving it might mean a biologically different process happened to you than not surviving it.
There’s a huge difference between an industrial accident and an execution. One of them is being done on purpose. An industrial accident may be someone running into a room flooded by the N2 fire suppression system, expecting nothing was wrong, taking a few deep breaths, and suddenly blacking out. Sudden, unexpected, unprepared, confused. The prisoner knows its coming, it’s being administered on a schedule, and might not be too keen on the whole thing. The guy in this case, for example, was strapped down to a gurney and had the mask tied to his head, allegedly. Not being surprised means it is a lot less likely to work in that sudden, shocking way even all-else being equal, which it isn’t.
Again, the medical experts I’ve seen interviewed all shrug at the question. They do not know. And even if knowing its coming isn’t an issue, the best evidence of using it for deliberate execution we have was the great distress it apparently caused animals.
It took 30 minutes for them to declare him dead. Only a few minutes for his breathing to stop entirely. I don’t think they had them hooked up to an EEG, so they just left him on the nitrogen for long enough to make sure it would be effective and then declared him dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation
It would be a bit less terrible a method if it actually worked that way. Still depraved, but slightly less.
But it doesn’t. Took 30 minutes for the guy to die, supposedly.
Vets swore off using this technique a while ago because of how clearly-distressed animals were when it was performed on them.
There’s a big difference between the kind of freak industrial accident you’re describing and intentional administration via a mask. And either way, we literally do not know if it is peace or torture.
I’ll agree that dying against your will is torture. And for animals that have time to know something is wrong and can’t escape it, they’re going to be distressed. I’m curious about the discrepancy between why this reportedly took so long when work safety experts warn that a couple of breaths of an oxygen deficient atmosphere can induce unconsciousness.
But I’m only answering the question of why we would think this is painless and then assertion that we can’t know. It sure sounds like we do know. But I’ll stay open minded and keep reading.
The article said that the guy held his breath for as long as possible. It really would be torture to be strapped down and know that the next breath you take will kill you. Even if the actual experience is completely painless, trying to hold your breath as long as you can in order to stay alive for just a few more seconds sounds like a nightmare.
That’s horrifying. Holding your breath until you think holding it any longer will kill you because not doing so definitely will. At least with the injection there was absolutely nothing you could do to delay or stop the process once it started.
Well, apparently there was.
Why the fuck wouldn’t they sedate the guy first - give him a fucking fentanyl OD and immediately put the mask on him.
I’m not sure. Maybe there’s a law or something that says a person needs to be conscious and aware when they get executed?
I mean, the citation is, to start with, not a medical organization. They’re reporting on workplace incidents, essentially, and making big assumptions. Also no mentioned of the violent seizures.
Also, not to be captain obvious, but reports of the experience, definitionally, come from people who survived, which is another layer of it being a vastly different experience than dying that may not even be terribly analogous. Surviving it might mean a biologically different process happened to you than not surviving it.
There’s a huge difference between an industrial accident and an execution. One of them is being done on purpose. An industrial accident may be someone running into a room flooded by the N2 fire suppression system, expecting nothing was wrong, taking a few deep breaths, and suddenly blacking out. Sudden, unexpected, unprepared, confused. The prisoner knows its coming, it’s being administered on a schedule, and might not be too keen on the whole thing. The guy in this case, for example, was strapped down to a gurney and had the mask tied to his head, allegedly. Not being surprised means it is a lot less likely to work in that sudden, shocking way even all-else being equal, which it isn’t.
Again, the medical experts I’ve seen interviewed all shrug at the question. They do not know. And even if knowing its coming isn’t an issue, the best evidence of using it for deliberate execution we have was the great distress it apparently caused animals.
It took 30 minutes for them to declare him dead. Only a few minutes for his breathing to stop entirely. I don’t think they had them hooked up to an EEG, so they just left him on the nitrogen for long enough to make sure it would be effective and then declared him dead.