Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.
The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.
I highly doubt you know more than the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, who said:
Or the European Industrial Gases Association:
(They also said that fainting is “almost immediate” with oxygen concentrations below 6% by volume.)
You profess to know how breathing works, but I believe that we need to trust the experts whose job it is to research these things. I have linked ample research that supports my points and you have given nothing supporting yours. Either put up some evidence or leave it be.
Read the actual papers. You’re quoting the minimum time as the full range.
It’s up to 3 minutes.