Alabama nitrogen execution: symptoms during inert gas method

[nobodycaresaboutme]

If this thread is duplicate, I'm sorry. Mods can delete this.

Alabama executes man with nitrogen gas for 1993 murder over $200 drug debt

Alabama has executed a man by nitrogen gas for helping to burn a man alive in 1993 over a drug debt. Anthony Boyd was pronounced dead Thursday evening at William C.

apnews.com

The execution appeared to take longer than prior nitrogen gas executions. The state does not reveal the exact time the gas began flowing.

At about 5:57 p.m. Boyd clenched his fist, raised his head off the gurney slightly and began shaking. He then raised his legs off the gurney several inches. At about 6:01 p.m. he began a long series of heaving breaths that lasted at least 15 minutes, before becoming still. The curtain closed to the execution chamber at 6:27 p.m. The prison commissioner said the gas is kept flowing for five minutes after monitoring shows the inmate no longer has a heartbeat.

The state and Boyd's spiritual adviser gave conflicting accounts of what happened in the execution chamber.

The Rev. Jeff Hood stood by Boyd as he died. He was also at the first nitrogen gas execution.

"This is the worst one yet," Hood said. "I think they are absolutely incompetent when it comes to carrying out these executions." He said Alabama had promised nitrogen was a "quick, painless, easy form of execution and this is by far nothing anywhere close to that."

Hood said he believed Boyd planned to try to communicate through leg movements. Hood said he believed "some level of consciousness, in my opinion, for at least 16 minutes."

Alabama Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said he believed Boyd's shaking and other movements were involuntary.

He said while the execution took longer than previous ones, it was "just a few minutes past some of the others."

This shows potential symptoms and pain of the inert gas method. He kept moving for 15 minutes. It'd be natural for some people to see nitrogen death as too cruel and painful to be the execution mean. That being said we have no way to tell if he was feeling pain at that time. The claim of Alabama that he was no longer conscious and the movements were involuntary is understandable. Exit bags are designed by the follwers of the right to die including engineers and physicians to be as humane as possible. It may be premature to jump to the conclusion that peacefulness of exit bag and inert gas method is debunked and overthrown now. While being completely painless is the best, 15 minutes asphyxiation can happen during SN attempts as well. It might be acceptable level of discomfort. Possibly the authority did the execution in the wrong or cheaper way that are not fully supervised by medical professionals and cause some pain. While I have no idea whether or how this incident impacts on the reputation of inert gas death, I just want to share some insight into the method.

 

[EmptyBottle]

my guess is that the person holding their breath caused CO2 to build up and that influenced the effects.... tho some of the effects could have occured once unconscious too.

 

[dudebl]

I've read up on this and watched many YouTube videos.

Alabama botched it - there are many theories why it appeared to go wrong.

1) the mask they used wasn't perfectly sealed, allowing some ambient air (oxygen) to enter - causing him to stay conscious longer.

2) he may have vomited and aspirated his vomit, causing choking. The fact he may have been conscious longer would have caused extreme pain and terror drowning in your own vomit. Even after he lost consciousness, if he aspirated his vomit, his body would have struggled still being drowned and attempting to clear it.

To try to prevent this, they had him fast for 12 hours prior - but bile can still be vomitted.

They should have, and this may be wise for anyone trying the exit bag, to lay him on his side so vomit could naturally escape or sit him up leaning forward. But with the mask this still may have caused aspiration as there was nowhere for it to go - an exit bag with the precautions mentioned may leave enough space to allow the vomit to pool and not be aspirated.