Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
I really don’t think it would be painless. Probably feel like you are being suffocated and breathe in more air only for it to be without any oxygen and feel even worse. The last moments would be pure mental torture.
As stated elsewhere, the discomfort that you feel what you’re being suffocated is not from lack of oxygen. It is from build up of carbon dioxide. When you are breathing nitrogen, you can still exhale that carbon dioxide. You don’t get that panicked feeling of needing a breath.
TIL. Thanks for the explanation. Guess i was wrong then.
You weren’t wrong. There’s an explanation by @protist@mander.xyz further down the thread. They make a convincing argument that nitrogen asphyxiation likely leads to generalized pain and terror before seizures and death.
I think you might be panicking because you know you will die regardless. But then again that’s how all death penalties work.