Smith’s execution by “nitrogen hypoxia” took around 22 minutes, according to media witnesses, who were led into a viewing room at the William C Holman correctional facility in Atmore shortly before 8 pm local time.
It’s so weird how many people are so against Nitrogen asphyxiation when it should be one of the easiest, cheapest, and safest methods.
How’d they manage to screw it up?? Unless they botched it on purpose to prove a point?
Dr. Kevorkian invented an actually humane way of executing people (not that execution is humane, but)
it has three drugs, one to knock you unconscious, one to stop the heart and one to stop breathing…
suffocation is not going to be humane…
even with pure nitrogen, we have the ability to render people unconscious first…
which is what they’d do if they weren’t trying to torture people.Apparently they tried that on this guy first, but couldn’t find a vein. Guess he did everything possible to make it hard to find one… and they didn’t knock him out first, like with some laughing gas.
suffocation is not going to be humane… even with pure nitrogen
With pure nitrogen, unconsciousness comes first. Emphasis on the “pure” part; the moment any CO2 or O2 gets into the mix, shit happens.
they definitely can find a vein… it’s just not always easy…
as a kid they could never find my veins… even had an IV in my foot once. but when they need to they’ll just keep trying and calling in backup (and eventually a specialist).but yes of course, they could just use knock-out gas… and, really, completely replacing a rooms air with pure nitrogen is pretty dumb when you think about it. unless it was just a huge volume of gas that flooded the room. pulling a vaccuum on an entire room would take a while too.
and obviously he would hold his breath… eventually exhaling co^2
but yeah, why wouldn’t they just use standard anesthesia gas? or nitrous oxide?
…
someone invented a concept-art nitrogen gas suicide booth in switzerland, and some bubba read a tweet about it and now we have this here crime against humanity…but yeah, why wouldn’t they just use standard anesthesia gas? or nitrous oxide?
Because the suppliers don’t want to be associated with executions, so they won’t sell any to the state for that purpose.
It highly depends on the skill of the nurse, some have a sixth sense to do it at the first try. I have my veins destroyed thanks to long hospital stays while getting pumped full of antibiotics… but just today went to get some blood drawn, got the good nurse, and he did it on the first try. Actually barely felt it at all.
As for the Swiss guys, they have other non-art methods that can also use nitrogen… but they’re all targeted at people willing to die, not trying to fight it.
How’d they manage to screw it up??
Ways that come to mind:
- Guy held his breath for as long as possible, while fighting the restraints
- Leaky mask that let in ambient air with oxygen, prolonging the agony
- Cheap welding nitrogen laced with CO2, increasing the sensation of suffocation
Just like with suicide, there are plenty of tiny ways to botch an execution.
The article also mentions seizures, but that part is to be expected with any form of extensive brain damage leading to death… it can only be masked with some muscle relaxants, not avoided.
The article also mentions seizures, but that part is to be expected with any form of extensive brain damage leading to death…
Is this precisely because it wasn’t pure nitrogen?
Nah, as the brain dies, it gets “damaged”, and that can lead to seizures or whatever. It doesn’t really matter why it’s dying; as long as it stays more or less together, there will be “abnormal activity” until it runs out of energy and the neurons finally depolarize. During “natural death”, the whole body is usually too weak, or too sedated, to show any sign of that, but in otherwise able-bodied individuals… death ain’t pretty.
Then the question is whether the seizures would wake one from a nitrogen knockout. ie would one be aware of the seizures?
Based on my limited experience with seizures, the oncoming of one can wake one up, but after that they seem to knock one out… so if one was already knocked out in advance, I don’t think they would wake them up?
