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Alabama condemned for nitrogen gas execution: ‘They intended to torture him’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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Hypoxia with an inert gas (and CO2 evacuation), is a peaceful way of dying when you don't fight it: it starts with euphoria, followed by loss of consciousness, followed by brain damage and finally death after several minutes more.
If you struggle and try not to die for as long as possible... well, it's not going to be pretty. That's why the hypoxia euthanasia solutions always have an emergency out, in case the person changes their mind.
If like you say they cheaped out on the mask, that's going to be even less pretty.
Another possibility is the nitrogen source: nitrogen used for welding, comes mixed with some CO2 precisely so people don't go and kill themselves with it (accidentally or not). If they also cheaped out on the nitrogen and used one of those, that's torture.
It seems a smidge absurd to me that some people apparently expect that death row convicts won't fight it, I must admit. Of course he fought it. He was terrified.
A method doomed to be painful because the convict inevitably fights it is still painful, and it can't be deemed "okay" by blaming the convict for it as if he had any choice in the matter when fight-or-flight kicked in. It's yet another failure in a long string of similar execution failures.