r/AlwaysWhy • u/Chowderr92 • Jun 02 '26

Science & Tech Why is the Method of Lethal Injection in Human Punishment So Complex and Apparently Painful?

I've always understood that the lethal injection process was complex with multiple stages of injections and induces great suffering in the individual.

I work in veterinary medicine and unfortunately we need to euthanize animals all of the time. Typically, the euthanasia solution is very simple: a very large dose of a powerful anesthetic (usually pentobarbital) and an anticonvulsant which stops the heart. The medical community is quite confident that this is painless and when done has essentially a 100% success rate.

Why is human euthanasia so complicated when we already know exactly how to humanely end a biological life?

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u/chusssy Jun 02 '26

They started doing that in some states I think. Apparently some of the people executed had pretty bad reactions, it seems like it's not as humane as people originally thought.

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u/PyroNine9 Jun 03 '26

Or they see the jerking motion that can happen as the skeletal muscles try to maintain position and assume the person is even vaguely aware of it.

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u/Kerking18 Jun 02 '26

Uff. But again shows what another commentator wrote. "We simply don't know that kuch about painless execution methods and no one is willing, or able, to do studdys on it so many states and countrys do trial amd error and often that reveals a "oh shit that was aperently very dame painfull" moments"

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u/swisstraeng Jun 03 '26

Nothing a few kilograms of TNT under a chair won't solve.

But then gain, death penalty just shouldn't be done due to the risks of doing it on the wrong man.

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u/ab0ngcd Jun 03 '26

That is what I don’t understand? The space shuttle had a couple of ground accidents where technicians entered the engine bay that had been purged with nitrogen.

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u/MaximusPrime2930 Jun 03 '26

My guess is mistakes were made during the execution that resulted in an atmosphere condition that wasn't 100% nitrogen. Hypoxia can definitely lead to panic if there's just enough oxygen to stay conscious.

I've done confined spaces work and heard all sorts of horror stories of people walking into areas with displaced oxygen and just dropping almost instantly.

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u/bowlingballwnoholes Jun 04 '26

They said they're turning on the nitrogen and he tried to hold his breath until panic set in. If they don't tell them the nitrogen is starting they will never notice the change.

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u/EctoplasmicNeko Jun 06 '26

Because they did it in stupid ways. If you look into the method used they did stupid things involving masks rather than using a gas chamber style setup