Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.
The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.
We actually do know the effect of breathing nitrogen gas. It’s a hell of a lot better than injecting someone with a drug cocktail. I don’t agree with the death penalty but this is about as humane as the death penalty gets.
Exactly. They make it sound as if nobody ever got exposed to low oxygen atmospheres. Absurd. Just the stories of divers is so so much. You feel absolutely nothing and then it goes black. Real simple.
Yeah, it’s really similar to carbon monoxide poisoning. It’s not like suffocating because our bodies specifically react to the buildup of CO2, which triggers that pain and fear response. CO poisoning is incredibly dangerous because it’s so imperceptible and effective. When given the choice between O2 and CO our bodies will actually choose the latter because it bonds better to hemoglobin.
If ever there was a painless way to die, this is it.
My uneducated self was wondering how suffocation could be considered “humane”, but now I see that’s not what is happening. Thanks to your post, I have a better understanding of the process. I’m still against the death penalty, but I appreciate the info nonetheless. Thanks!
Yeah, I’m sick of the media drama about this dude. I don’t think they should execute him but there’s nothing that novel or cruel about the method.
It would be novel in that it’s the first time it’s ever been done.
The meat industry kills animals this way regularly. Also, plenty of people have died like this accidentally, so it’s not a mystery what will happen.
I know what you’re saying, but generally I wouldn’t look up too much on how “the meat industry” treats animals, including killing them - much less so if we’re using it to compare it to executing human beings.
My point was some of these articles act like it’s a mystery what might happen medically.
Yes, apoxia is the way to go if you have to.
Do you know that your body behaves differently when voluntarily being underwater while holding your breath and being held underwater while holding your breath knowing the person isn’t going to let you breath again?
The negative side effects of the latter kick in way before you start to run out of oxygen.
That’s not how it works. Your body can’t detect a lack of oxygen but only build up of CO2. If you replace the air you breath with pure Helium, N2, CO, etc. you will just painlessly black out and die.
The difference is that nitrogen is odorless and colorless and we breath it in constantly. You won’t notice it, you’ll just start panting, get loopy, then lose consciousness.
You don’t even start panting, because that is a response to CO2 buildup
That is relevant when the person doesn’t know. Someone being executed will know that getting loopy means they are dying, and trigger a distress response.
CO2 isn’t necessary to let your body know it is suffocating when you already know you are suffocating.
Except part of that response is because suffocating is uncomfortable. If I had to die id rather drift off to sleep. Your grandstanding here isn’t going to get rid of the death penalty in Alabama. It may as well be more humane. Unless you are for more discomfort to make a point.
There was a dude who used to sell kits for people to kill themselves with helium. Random people can manage it with a hood they put on themselves. Its less prone to error than other forms such as lethal injection where they have to be able to hit a vein and not blow it.
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…and there you go. I was reading attentively, but welp. Any seriousness of whatever argument you were trying to make going down the drain with three simple words.
Yours went down with two so I guess you won. Congrats!
Starting to sound like your opinion to be honest. By the time he notices he’s loopy, it is over.
How is that fixed by using a drug cocktail? Seems like any method of execution will scare the person being executed.
A drug cocktail, the electric chair, lethal injection, and any form of execution is going to cause distress. Distress is worse than just being scared because distress actually causes the body to feel as if it is being harmed whether it is or isn’t. The longer the process takes, the worse the distress.
The electric chair is probably the worst because you get the distress and ridiculous levels of pain. Same with the gas chamber. Lethal injection, if done right, reduces the pain but still has the distress. But they fuck that up so it ends up being both as well.
This new thing will be fucked up like lethal injection because the people doing the executions are incompetent. But even if they did it perfectly the person knows they will be dying and it isn’t significantly different from suffocation because they will still have the same distress.