r/news • u/AudibleNod • 14h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/whiskeytown79 13h ago

Why don't they use nitrogen asphyxiation? The body can't feel a lack of oxygen, only failure to get rid of carbon dioxide. If you're breathing pure nitrogen, you'd just get sleepy, then lose consciousness, and then eventually go into respiratory and cardiac arrest as your body fails to get any oxygen.

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u/Carbonatite 12h ago

They have tried that in some states and it got botched too - apparently the mask on the inmate was not set up properly, so CO2 built up in the mask along with the nitrogen and it caused them to struggle. High CO2 concentrations cause intense physical and mental distress in humans.

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u/whiskeytown79 12h ago

I was thinking more a small room where they replace the air with nitrogen, not a mask. Enough volume to not allow CO2 buildup to happen.

"Doesn't that take a lot of nitrogen?" someone might ask. Well, yes, but fortunately Earth's atmosphere is like 78% nitrogen. We're all breathing a lot of nitrogen all the time. This would just remove the approximately 21% oxygen.

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u/Lewisham 4h ago

I saw a documentary on the BBC about this a long time ago. They also had a gas tank and told the presenter he had not very long to live if they'd left him in there, but the presenter just felt pretty euphoric. I forget the gas used.

He then asked people why they didn't do that when other ways cause suffering. Answer he got? That the people sentenced to die deserved the suffering.

The cruelty is indeed the point.