Alabama inmate executed with nitrogen gas was ‘shaking violently’ for 22 minutes, witnesses say
Alabama inmate executed with nitrogen gas was ‘shaking violently’ for 22 minutes, witnesses say
State executes Kenneth Smith with untested procedure that lawyers had argued amounted to cruel and unusual punishment
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This is normal in low-oxygen, low-CO2 hypoxia.
The patient is not conscious during these spasms, and feels no pain.
EDIT: Nitrogen hypoxia is an instant and painless death experience, because you pass out almost without conscious awareness, the same as if you go under the gas they have at the dentist while counting down from 10 and never remember getting to 1. The difference is that the body's death is very slow, as the body's tissues are deprived of oxygen and slowly run out of gas and stall out. As long as the patient continues to not spike in CO2, they will remain unconscious and unaware through the entire process - as necessary and brutal as it is to - you know - stop a body.
EDIT2: Exercise reasonable doubt when reading the comments below which are calling into question whether the patient 'gasped for air' or doubt for some reason that a mask is adequate. 1) The patient held their breath from the nitrogen intake as long as they could. This is the same as you sitting on a dentists chair refusing to inhale the gas. You will quickly suffer the normal heightened discomfort until your brain takes executive control and just makes you to inhale. The patient in this case brought their will right up against that reflex, a miserable experience and one in which I can't imagine it was a comfortable mental space to be in. Then the inhale reflex kicked in and they nearly instantly lost consciousness. Over the next hour or so their body slowly ceased function, without tripping any of the really scary nervous system alarms. Patient never woke up. 2) A mask is preferred in systems like this because of the inherent safety risk involved for the administers with invisible, body-encompassing volumes of nitrogen. A mask is also totally up to the task, as anyone who's been put down at the dentist can attest to. These masks also have multiple, multiple added redundancy features which help protect the air seal, as well as post-review-diagnostics. They're safe. The main concern in this situation is administer training, in the proper handling of the body's seizures such that the mask isn't somehow pried off.
Except they said he was gasping for air. Nitrogen hypoxia wouldn't do that, because you'd still be exchanging CO2 and your body wouldn't recognize the lack of oxygen in the air.
Because they put a mask on him instead of filling the room with nitrogen.
Bunch of idiots.
AND he held his breath as long as he could to avoid inhaling. Really it should be done in a whole room like you said, and at a random time so as to avoid that stressful “last moment” struggle.
Preferably we don’t execute people at all, no matter how heinous their crimes.
Preferably we don’t execute people at all, no matter how heinous their crimes.
I have never understood this philosophy. Human lives are worth so fucking little. Culling ones that are cancerous to society is the same as treating an infected wound. We are not so divine that we somehow must never be removed. Not killing certain people just results in more innocent people being killed.
Culling ones that are cancerous to society
Holy Holocaust, Batman!
Murderers, Rapists, etc you pearl-clutcher.
I think life imprisonment is a perfectly reasonable, if expensive, solution.
Not killing certain people just results in more innocent people being killed.
literally what does this even mean.
You can't fathom how killing a serial killer would result in lives saved?
Keeping them in prison and/or psychiatric treatment would have the same effect.
Unless they kill someone in there too. Just kill them and be done with them. No need for us as a society to pump more resources into them. We need to be absolutely sure it was them, but I don't understand this wild need to keep someone alive simply because they're human.
You can't fathom how giving the state access to lethal means of punishment won't result in innocent people being killed?
When you treat cancer, some healthy cells die as a result of treatment. It's unavoidable. You're proposing you just let it spread because hey...you might kill innocent cells. You can't see the forest for the trees here. The state having lethal means of punishment still allows us to put checks on the system to ensure this happens minimally. Individual human lives are worthless. Humans progression as a species overall might be worth something, however.
I'm sure you don't mind people having abortions, right? Reconcile those thoughts. If you're okay with abortions, you have to be okay with the state having access to lethal means of punishment. If you're not okay with the state having lethal means of punishment, then you should logically also not be okay with abortions.
They're somewhat separate subjects, but they also involve destroying a human life. My opinion on the matter is reconciled. I'm okay with women having the right to terminate a life inside of them, because it affects them for their entire life. Therefore, I'm also okay with the state punishing people who have ultimately had a negative life-changing effects on those around them, the same way a child might ruin the life of a woman who isn't ready for a child.
My beliefs are consistent. Are yours?
Wtf is wrong with you. Your cells aren't sentient, they're not actively experiencing living, so a few as collateral to save a life from cancer is fine.
Living, sentient humans are not okay to treat as collateral. I mean, I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate being killed as "collateral for the greater good" or whatever.
Where did you get your morals from??
Comparing execution and medical care is hilarious. They are two fundamentally different concepts. You can write your diatribe to try and sound smart all you like, the fact remains that having lethal forms of punishment has, and will continue to, result in deaths of innocent people in the name of 'justice'.
Not idiots, it was very much an informed decision.
Yup. Religious people are always fucking trash.
I'm not doubting anything your saying, but calling someone who is being murdered by the state the patient is icky, even if the methods being used are analogous to those used on patients who are receiving medical care. It also underlines the point that, of course the victim resisted because they were being killed, compared to a dental patient who is willingly undergoing a procedure they can expect to wake up from. Nitrogen hypoxia may be an effective way of administering a humane death to a willing participant, but in some ways giving a false perception of control to the victim (as long as I can hold my breath I won't die, as obviously futile as that may be) is undermining all of the considerations of physical discomfort that go into describing the process as humane
Agreed on all points. Patient seemed like the least-biased form of address, but these are situations were bias is very, very hard to overcome.