Alabama has executed a man by nitrogen gas for helping to burn a man alive in 1993 over a drug debt. Anthony Boyd was pronounced dead Thursday evening at William C.
I work with Liquid Nitrogen every day on my job, and I have also trained many people over the years, and the first thing we discussis safety.
There are three dangers to Liquid Nitrogen, and everybody worries about the two that will never happen, and they never worry about the real danger.
The first two potential dangers are having your limbs snap off because LN splashed on them, or the the tank will explode. Neither of those things is ever going to happen.
What happens every year, is death from nitrogen asphyxiation. A couple of years ago, 6 workers on a Georgia poultry plant died from a leaky nitrogen pipe. Somebody dies from poorly applied cryotherapy, or poorly maintained equipment every single year. I always have a new, current story to tell in training sessions.
Air contains about 78% nitrogen, and only about 19% oxygen. Otherwise, the entire planetary atmosphere would completely burn up at the first natural lightning strike or spark (nitrogen won’t burn). So we humans evolved over millions of years breathing a high nitrogen atmosphere (part of what characterizes a Class-M planet on Star Trek).
That means that as the nitrogen levels start to rise, and the oxygen levels start to decrease, our bodies easily adjust, and we feel no symptoms like other gaseous poisons like CO² or Carbon Monoxide, which causes nausea, headaches, delusions, confusion, etc. With nitrogen, you get none of that, you just get tired, fall asleep…and die. Its quick, painless, and efficient.
If they are having the problems being reported, then the authorities are doing it wrong. Obviously, using a mask is allowing too much oxygen to leak in. They need a small, airtight chamber. Liquid Nitrogen converts from a liquid to a gas at a rate of about 695:1, which means one ounce of liquid nitrogen evaporates into 695 ounces of gas. It doesn’t take much liquid nitrogen to fill a small chamber with gas, and displace ALL the oxygen. The person will breathe it naturally, and fall asleep. Their vitals can be monitored remotely, and their death confirmed.
There is even a current hit movie (I won’t name the movie since this is a spoiler) in which a character is led into a room, where he sits and relaxes, unaware that the room is filling with gas, which kills him. The film doesn’t say what the gas is, but nitrogen would be the most easily available substance to use.
In the old days, the authorities would be left with a dead inmate and a sealed chamber full of extremely lethal gas, which had to be carefully vented. Today, they’d be left with a sealed chamber of nitrogen, which can easily be vented straight into the high nitrogen atmosphere without danger to anyone else.
Any thrashing around by the inmate is most likely a bit of theater by the inmate, who is not motivated to cooperate, or make things easier on the authorities.
If done properly, which they don’t seem to be doing, execution by nitrogen asphyxiation is painless, efficient, and as humane as an execution can be.
It does tend to be the case that these people don’t know what they’re doing. My understanding is that medical doctors, and professionals like yourself, are more commonly against this type of punishment and refuse to participate.
I work with Liquid Nitrogen every day on my job, and I have also trained many people over the years, and the first thing we discussis safety.
There are three dangers to Liquid Nitrogen, and everybody worries about the two that will never happen, and they never worry about the real danger.
The first two potential dangers are having your limbs snap off because LN splashed on them, or the the tank will explode. Neither of those things is ever going to happen.
What happens every year, is death from nitrogen asphyxiation. A couple of years ago, 6 workers on a Georgia poultry plant died from a leaky nitrogen pipe. Somebody dies from poorly applied cryotherapy, or poorly maintained equipment every single year. I always have a new, current story to tell in training sessions.
Air contains about 78% nitrogen, and only about 19% oxygen. Otherwise, the entire planetary atmosphere would completely burn up at the first natural lightning strike or spark (nitrogen won’t burn). So we humans evolved over millions of years breathing a high nitrogen atmosphere (part of what characterizes a Class-M planet on Star Trek).
That means that as the nitrogen levels start to rise, and the oxygen levels start to decrease, our bodies easily adjust, and we feel no symptoms like other gaseous poisons like CO² or Carbon Monoxide, which causes nausea, headaches, delusions, confusion, etc. With nitrogen, you get none of that, you just get tired, fall asleep…and die. Its quick, painless, and efficient.
If they are having the problems being reported, then the authorities are doing it wrong. Obviously, using a mask is allowing too much oxygen to leak in. They need a small, airtight chamber. Liquid Nitrogen converts from a liquid to a gas at a rate of about 695:1, which means one ounce of liquid nitrogen evaporates into 695 ounces of gas. It doesn’t take much liquid nitrogen to fill a small chamber with gas, and displace ALL the oxygen. The person will breathe it naturally, and fall asleep. Their vitals can be monitored remotely, and their death confirmed.
There is even a current hit movie (I won’t name the movie since this is a spoiler) in which a character is led into a room, where he sits and relaxes, unaware that the room is filling with gas, which kills him. The film doesn’t say what the gas is, but nitrogen would be the most easily available substance to use.
In the old days, the authorities would be left with a dead inmate and a sealed chamber full of extremely lethal gas, which had to be carefully vented. Today, they’d be left with a sealed chamber of nitrogen, which can easily be vented straight into the high nitrogen atmosphere without danger to anyone else.
Any thrashing around by the inmate is most likely a bit of theater by the inmate, who is not motivated to cooperate, or make things easier on the authorities.
If done properly, which they don’t seem to be doing, execution by nitrogen asphyxiation is painless, efficient, and as humane as an execution can be.
It does tend to be the case that these people don’t know what they’re doing. My understanding is that medical doctors, and professionals like yourself, are more commonly against this type of punishment and refuse to participate.
The instinct to survive makes breathing in the death gas extremely difficult even if you’re in agony from co2 buildup in your body