Kenneth Smith ‘struggled for life’ for 22 minutes in nitrogen gas execution: Updates
www.independent.co.uk
Witness Reverend Jeff Hood told reporters he saw a man ‘struggling for their life’ for 22 minutes as Smith became the first US death row inmate executed by nitrogen asphyxia

“Kenny just began to gasp for air repeatedly and the execution took about 25 minutes total.”

Pretty compassionate way to kill a person.

Once again, the Law in the south is brutal.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.world
    1274·
    9 months ago

    There are many accounts of workers accidentally entering confined spaces that have been purged with nitrogen and they were all unconscious in seconds. (OSHA records). If it took the prison 22 MINUTES to execute this guy, then they totally botched that execution.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      412·
      9 months ago

      The gas mixture clearly had oxygen still in it. If he’s gasping for air for 22 minutes, he was still receiving low amounts of O2.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      12·
      9 months ago

      Yeah I think when an airplane depressurizes at high altitude it’s something like 5 minutes and people are unconscious. And people just act like drunken idiots after one minute.

      Remember in the event of depressurization, put your own mask on before helping others. Because you’re likely to be a just complete idiot that’s just getting in the way if your brain isn’t properly oxygenated.

      But anyway… yeah these guys fucked up. A big problem with executions that people don’t talk about is that there isn’t a lot of overlap on the Venn diagram of people that are competent enough to perform an execution vs. the people who are willing to perform an execution.

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      108·
      9 months ago

      Not defending what they did, but he was probably unconscious. His body was fighting for its life.

      • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
        47·
        9 months ago

        And that’s why, when you remove that critical 21% of oxygen, your body doesn’t realize it’s suffocating. You breath normally but pass out really quickly since your brain has nothing to burn.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation?wprov=sfla1

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarco_pod?wprov=sfla1

        Some reporter from Salon, or Wire - some big site like that - participated in a controlled nitrogen hypoxia experiment on himself, and wrote about it. It was really interesting, but search engines are flooded with that Alabama execution, and I lost interest in searching for it.

        • bss03@infosec.pubEnglish
          9·
          9 months ago

          If you can find it https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1228865 is a good watch. It covers other methods, but it becomes clear how fast, effective, and painless nitrogen asphyxiation can be, as the presenter has to receive assistance in order not to die while attempting to get close to the experience (without dying).

          It’s also a bit sad, as it makes it clear that for at least some capital punishment advocates, suffering is a desired part of the outcome.

          I’d like to avoid death, but I can foresee a potential future when my quality of life is negative and no amount of volunteer effort can bring it positive. If that happens, I’d like to opt-in to mortality via inert gas (probably nitrogen) asphyxiation.

          If we must have capital punishment, inert gas asphyxiation seems to be the best known way to do it. I’m not convinced we must have capital punishment, tho.

          • 𝕽𝖚𝖆𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖍@midwest.social
            5·
            9 months ago

            Nice! I hadn’t seen that.

            People are going to need to die in controlled ways; whether in believing some people should be murdered by the State, or in believing people should be allowed to end their own lives, there are few Americans who don’t fall somewhere outside of the set of people who think there is never a case for controlled human death. Most of those people are probably Amish, or some branch thereof.

            Alabama clearly fucked this one up - I guess that’s what happens when you drive all of the STEM folks out of your state. There was no reason - other than wanting a person to suffer, as you said - for it to have gone so wrong. Justified or not, if I were to ever find myself in that chair, asphixiation by nitrous nitrogen is absolutely the way I’d want to go. And that’s the most basic measure of humanity we need: do unto others.

            Edit: typo

      • Zink@programming.dev
        10·
        9 months ago

        Fun fact for friendly posters: companies that make gas detectors use lots of nitrogen because it’s a great “zero” gas. That is, 100% dry nitrogen equates to “nothing there” on sensors for all kinds of gases.

        Including oxygen sensors! Did you know in air they measure 20.8% and in nitrogen they measure zero point zero?