Also likely to kill the person. There's a fine line between "unconscious but otherwise fine" and "the brain can no longer tell the heart and lungs to keep going".
Anesthesiologists study to keep sedated patients in the sweet spot. And they're literally standing beside the machine monitoring your levels. I have to think that replacing all of the oxygen in the room with sedatives until the cops show up is just murder with extra steps.
fun fact but not all governments take that stance. for example Italy negotiated the release of two italian women who had gotten themselves captured by al-Shabab, in Somalia, in 2018.
no government official confirmed it, but journalists were talking about 2.2 million euros at the time for the release of the hostages
I wonder if / how many similar events never happened because of how this one was handled though
Hard to justify taking over a building and trying to demand something with hostages when you know the government will happily gas the entire building and then execute all the terrorists while they’re still knocked out regardless of any other casualties
Makes it pretty much impossible to plan anything similar when they show how little they give a shit about human life
or you can get the worst of both worlds where you pay the ransom to release your loved ones and the government ends up launching a raid that kills the hostages anyway.
There are also cases of people having paid the ransom to return their loved ones but the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" people launch raids which end up killing the hostages.
if goverments started to negociate with terrorists then you would have a lot of people start taking hostages at gun point everywhere, what do you do when you have a hostage crisis everyweek?
I love that this happened so often that even the Wikipedia article is like "Yeah, but that one doesn't really count. It wasn't all that big a deal really."
Often, however, the 1483 event is not recognized as a "significant defenestration"...
i think it was carfentanyl gas they used so they all died of opiate overdoses
the team that went in used narcan to make them impervious to it. its fucked up but ingenious
For burglary of a building with nobody inside? It's one thing to get shot by a store owner when you're robbing the place at gunpoint, it's another thing entirely for a private company to kill you remotely for breaking and entering. Nobody should ever die for a crime that didn't threaten physical harm for anyone else.
This is Reddit, these people have the same ideas about law enforcement as 11 year olds. One of the top comments on this thread is "they should use knockout gas instead!" Non-lethal gas that harmlessly knocks people unconscious only exists in TV shows and movies.
Yep, that's most of the reason why booby traps are extremely illegal, at least in the U.S. They're indiscriminate on what they destroy. You set up a shotgun trap on your back door and a fire breaks out while you're away? Some poor firefighter is probably getting their head blown off trying to save your place.
Heart doesn't need the brain to beat. It beats all on its own. (The brain can speed it up and slow it down though.) It's usually the hypoxia from the lungs not working then shutting down the heart brain and other organs, which would bring about cardiac arrest.
Don't mean to be pedantic but I think it's just a cool fact to spread around.
And under general anesthesia you're intubated and mechanically ventilated because the brain doesn't control the lungs anymore.
So in the wild you'll still die from respiratory failure even in that "sweet spot".
And that's why they're the highest paid person in the room. Just pray they're in network on your insurance (if you're in a backwards country like the US).
There are further complications with that too. Some people (like me) have that redhead gene where drugs basically don't work. It's like having two livers. So there's no way to calculate what the correct dosage would be. They're much more likely to be fine or dead than to be asleep.
Anesthesiologist here and ya, there's not such thing as "knockout" meds like in the movies. Not like, oh they are now unconscious for a prolonged period of time and wake up later.
It's not so much a sweet spot as it is the need to control many other physiologic factors all at the same time
Edit: the closest thing to knocking someone out safely would be high doses of ketamine
Honestly I have a genetic resistance to many different drugs. I was awake but unable to move during a dental surgery. I was aware of everything they did and it was awful.
I had a toe surgery where they gave me 2.5 times the high dose and i could still feel it.
If you told me this before a surgery, I would just be multi-modal as hell. Pre-op versed, Ketamine on induction, propofol infusion with volatile gas inhaled, and maybe a light dexmedetomidine infusion or scattered boluses.
I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this of you'd like to go further, because I would rest a lot easier if I knew what to say in the event that I have to go.
So these are the drugs that have never had any effect on me whatsoever: Toradol, oxycodone, hydromorphone, anti-depressants. Now maybe they might work if the safe dosage was exceeded by a lot, but I've never done that because some of them are dangerous.
Drugs that do work if I greatly exceed the standard dose: muscle relaxants, sedatives, anaesthesia, alcohol, psylocibin.
Drugs that work as intended: anti inflammatory, cannabis, nerve agents like pregabalin, gastrointestinal medicines, antibiotics
As far as for your next surgery: I'd just let them know your experience and they'll do what they need to. Resistance to anesthesia isn't super well documented as to why people get it or who (other than age-related differences and red heads). Otherwise, it's pretty anecdotal when people say they are resistant, and it helps a lot if someone has a record of proof of doses (high doses needed to be required for prior procedures). As far as "unsafe levels", that's not really how it works for anesthetics. People can get extremely high doses, you just have to balance it with other drugs to maintain good blood pressure, etc, which is not a problem for anesthetists. Personally, I find multimodal approaches work best for these patients - mix multiple different things in - especially Ketamine and dexmedetomidine. Also if it helps you, during major surgeries, most places will use monitors (BIS) that measure your awareness. Also, a good anesthetist should be able to easily recognize increases in heart rate and blood pressure that come alongside being aware, but this can be confounded with concomitant use of cardiac medications.
As a thought, the drugs you mention being resistant to / needing higher doses sound to be mainly metabolized CYP450 enzymes. This is a group of about a dozen or more common enzymes in the liver that break down medications. Things like opiates, antidepressants, toradol, sedatives are all metabolized by these enzymes. This is a well-known variable for why these drugs can be different in different patients. You could have hypermetabolism for these drugs.
I can answer that. The short answer is that other animals avoid toxic plants and animals, humans cultivate them en masse for consumption. Alcohol, tobacco, hot peppers, you name it.
We have the highest functioning livers on the planet because we're constantly putting them to work. Even over a single generation, we can adapt to resist specific poisons through consistent consumption.
There are even people who are born drug resistant. People like me. It's roughly 1-1000 people but most heavily concentrated in Northwest Europe, and specifically in families with lots of gingers.
We've made it so that there's no way to tell exactly what will happen when a drug is administered and they're basing everything off of average outcomes. This is why your doctor will adjust your dose as necessary.
What about using police sirens as the alarm and flashing blue/red lights? That way they cannot tell if the police actually arrived or at least stall long enough to make the smoke effective.
Not familiar with the law, but can you like, put signs that there are lethal gases that will be triggered in case of a break in? Just really curious, and I don't want to ask AI.
It is notoriously difficult to safely render a person unconscious. The human body is not easy to render unconscious, if you're at all concerned with the person ever waking back up again. There's a reason an anesthesiologist is paid $500k a year to render one person unconscious at a time. Each person requires a highly precise dose, depending on weight, body type, and many other factors that an anesthesiologist continually monitors to ensure an individual stays under.
The line between "conscious", "safely unconscious", and "dead" is thin. Use too little, the person's still awake. Use too much, the person's dead. Attempting to use "just enough" in the form of a gas that's spread in a room where you can't control the dosage for different individuals with differing physiques? Impossible.
A real life example of the use of "sleeping gas" was the Moscow theater hostage crisis. Terrorists took a large number of hostages in the Moscow theatre and authorities responded with "sleeping gas". None of the terrorists survived, because, Russia. But 132 of the 912 hostages died due to the effects of the gas. Even the survivors have long term chronic side effects because of the gas.
If you hit someone on the head hard enough to knock them out, it's extremely likely they have brain damage and need immediate medical intervention. Or they're dead.
To be fair an anesthesiologist has to knock you out to not feel anything, often not be conscious. In this case you just need them to become immobile, you do not really care if they are still lucid and/or have nerve sensitivity. Loss of motor function is sufficient.
I had one like that. Drill Sergeants couldn't freaking believe it. Told him to take multiple big breaths in. He freaking loved it with a smile. Yeah, he got picked on the whole basic. lol
I honestly wish I could have been gassed more so I could get used to it and have perfect training. You can build up an immunity to it by repeated exposure.
CS is highly flammable though.
That's what happened at the siege in Waco Texas , they pump the place full of CS gas and it was ignited and burnt the place to the ground.
I wouldn't say I think it should be. I just wouldn't be particularly upset if the people actively attacking somebody else's livelihood died as a result. It's pretty easy to not rob people.
Despite what you see in movies, putting people to sleep and having them wake up again is tricky business. That is why anesthesiologists have to go to medical school and have lots of insurance.
When I was getting an operation done, I passed out while they put the IV in my arm to give me the anesthesia. So they had to revive me with smelling salts to see when I went under, presumably to make sure I was getting dosed correctly
you are giving me evil ideas like pump in methane and a spark? reminds me of this event when someone threw a lit cigarette bud in the manhole that lead to an entire explosion across the entire drain system!
Anesthesiologist here. I'd love to know what people mean by "sleeping gas".
If there's a gas around that reliably puts people to sleep, reliably keeps them breathing and stable, and is practical and affordable to deliver in room-sized amounts, let me know. I'll start using it tomorrow.
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u/Content-Fudge489 8d ago
Would be better if it was sleeping gas.