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.
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.
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.
Starting to sound like your opinion to be honest. By the time he notices he’s loopy, it is over.