myths of instant, painless death

[bov]

I keep seeing people talk about death by gunshot, death by train, or death by jumping under certain logistical conditions, as examples of instantaneous, painless death or something close to it.

I don't mean to open a big can of worms, and I know the megathreads exist. I'm just concerned for whoever believes this.

 

[Aap]

I'm not sure if you are referring to the beforehand fear or the actual point of death. Certainly, none of the methods you describe are free from prior discomfort. However, in the case of a properly placed shotgun blast to the head, death occurs nearly instantly (~1600 ft/s over a few inches), and is painless, as it occurs faster than the speed of neural transmission and certainly faster than conscious perception.

 

[KingoftheFreaks]

I keep seeing people talk about death by gunshot, death by train, or death by jumping under certain logistical conditions, as examples of instantaneous, painless death or something close to it.

I don't mean to open a big can of worms, and I know the megathreads exist. I'm just concerned for whoever believes this.

The way they kill people by lethal injection is painless. You are doped out of your head on barbiturates before your body systems start to shut down

 

[bov]

I didn't create the post to talk about which methods are painless, just to debunk.

@Aap, I buy that but also feel like it's easy to get the angle wrong, especially if you're in a state of deep distress, and getting it wrong could make for a slow agonizing death.

 

[Aap]

I'm not sure if your argument is that these methods are not foolproof, which is correct, or that these methods cannot be painless, which is not.

 

[bov]

That's a good distinction. I should have left gunshot out of the list; I originally made the post in response to comments I read about jumping.

 

[Gnip]

I just experienced anesthesia on Friday morning prior to undergoing kidney stone ultrasound lithotripsy. Usually, there's a momentary pleasant sensation as I slip under anesthesia, and I was waiting for that fleeting high as I was being wheeled into the outpatient OR, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up after the procedure was over, having never been aware of the anesthesia kicking in.

Certainly death can be like that, where one instant, everything seems perfectly normal, then that is the final awareness ever experienced, with no warning at all.

Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler described his televised heart attack in September 2012 that way, He felt fine at the announcer's table, blinked his eyes, then the next thing he knew, he was awake in a hospital bed a couple days later. All he knows of the time in between is from the footage seen by everybody else. He felt fine in the hospital before being discharged a week later, and returned to the ring after that heart attack and later also returned to the ring after a stroke in March 2018.

Maybe death isn't usually instantaneously painless, but my experience Friday morning proves it certainly can be, and definitely would have been had I never woken up.

 

[sadworld]

I just experienced anesthesia on Friday morning prior to undergoing kidney stone ultrasound lithotripsy. Usually, there's a momentary pleasant sensation as I slip under anesthesia, and I was waiting for that fleeting high as I was being wheeled into the outpatient OR, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up after the procedure was over, having never been aware of the anesthesia kicking in.

Certainly death can be like that, where one instant, everything seems perfectly normal, then that is the final awareness ever experienced, with no warning at all.

Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler described his televised heart attack in September 2012 that way, He felt fine at the announcer's table, blinked his eyes, then the next thing he knew, he was awake in a hospital bed a couple days later. All he knows of the time in between is from the footage seen by everybody else. He felt fine in the hospital before being discharged a week later, and returned to the ring after that heart attack and later also returned to the ring after a stroke in March 2018.

Maybe death isn't usually instantaneously painless, but my experience Friday morning proves it certainly can be, and definitely would have been had I never woken up.

Yeah, sadly it's hard to do all of this yourself. Especially the injection...

 

[Kat!]

By far, gunshot to the head is the top method. Even explosives are less reliable and not as deadly as a single GSW (gunshot wound).
There is no saying whether any method is completely painless, but I can assure you that this one is, as long as it's done correctly.
Other methods including chemical injections and certain inhalants are painless as well.

I'd prefer the electric chair to a firing squad, and a firing squad to lethal injection. The FDA has been cracking down on the necessary drugs for lethal injections so it's very possible to be injected with something inadequate or even wrong. Firing squads shoot for the heart, and electric chair is directly to the brain.

 

[Aap]

Functionally, there isn't as much difference as you would think between instant decapitation and having the heart instantly destroyed, as both immediately cease blood flow to the brain. The FDA isn't cracking down on anything; it is the drug manufacturers. In any case, most states are shifting away from a three drug cocktail to single drug.

I would vigorously disagree that the electric chair is instant or painless, as evidenced by the length and number of runs of electricity used in protocol.

 

[Leiden]

The way they kill people by lethal injection is painless. You are doped out of your head on barbiturates before your body systems start to shut down

I was seeing some things about this very method and what I saw really frightened me. It lead me to believe that the prisoners who get these injections suffer much.

 

[Deleted member 23726]

I just experienced anesthesia on Friday morning prior to undergoing kidney stone ultrasound lithotripsy. Usually, there's a momentary pleasant sensation as I slip under anesthesia, and I was waiting for that fleeting high as I was being wheeled into the outpatient OR, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up after the procedure was over, having never been aware of the anesthesia kicking in.

Certainly death can be like that, where one instant, everything seems perfectly normal, then that is the final awareness ever experienced, with no warning at all.

Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler described his televised heart attack in September 2012 that way, He felt fine at the announcer's table, blinked his eyes, then the next thing he knew, he was awake in a hospital bed a couple days later. All he knows of the time in between is from the footage seen by everybody else. He felt fine in the hospital before being discharged a week later, and returned to the ring after that heart attack and later also returned to the ring after a stroke in March 2018.

Maybe death isn't usually instantaneously painless, but my experience Friday morning proves it certainly can be, and definitely would have been had I never woken up.

You don't think the nitrogen method for death is instantaneously painless?

 

[ZardozOmega]

You don't think the nitrogen method for death is instantaneously painless?

i guess it's not instantaneously

 

[Gnip]

You don't think the nitrogen method for death is instantaneously painless?

I do think the nitrogen method is instantaneously painless, with no sensation of suffocation based upon what people who have experienced pure nitrogen inhalation have said (especially LezteAusfahrt), and my own childhood experiences inhaling helium from balloons to make funny voices and huffing gasoline fumes for a quick high sensation. (Incidentally, fuckwit authorities in the UK may want to consider abolishing all petrol if they're so fucking concerned about sodium nitrite, pure nitrogen and helium gases, since inhaling petrol fumes in an enclosed space can also do the job in the same way chloroform has been used to CTB since the mid 1800's.)

 

[StuFin]

You don't think the nitrogen method for death is instantaneously painless?

I think it is, you're out cold in 10 seconds or so and know nothing about it. No reaction from your body either, it doesn't realise it's breathing in a gas. Shame it's so complicated to set up properly (with diving mask, adapters, etc, or a regulator and a chicken roasting bag on your head).

 

[Mthom2]

I think it is, you're out cold in 10 seconds or so and know nothing about it. No reaction from your body either, it doesn't realise it's breathing in a gas. Shame it's so complicated to set up properly (with diving mask, adapters, etc, or a regulator and a chicken roasting bag on your head).

I'd love to be able to get my hands on the equipment required for this method. If I had everything, I'd be gone by Saturday morning! SI would nearly evaporate.

 

[StuFin]

I always prefered CO for this reason, but it's too unreliable I think. If it goes wrong then you could really mess yourself up, so it's SN for me. I'd love to be able to do the nitrogen though.

 

[Gnip]

I think it is, you're out cold in 10 seconds or so and know nothing about it. No reaction from your body either, it doesn't realise it's breathing in a gas. Shame it's so complicated to set up properly (with diving mask, adapters, etc, or a regulator and a chicken roasting bag on your head).

Well I'll be obtaining a complete nitrogen tire inflation kit for carrying in the trunk of my car, and filling an empty 150 CF aluminum cylinder with purest grade nitrogen which I can also use with my home brewing kit. That can seem pricey to some, but it's not complicated to use. My interest in a compatible mask is so I can practice the way Letze described, by pressing the mask loosely against my face.

 

[yetme]

The way they kill people by lethal injection is painless. You are doped out of your head on barbiturates before your body systems start to shut down

I used to think that too, until I watched a documentary about a woman who went through a major surgery totally conciouss, but paralyzed. She received anasthesia with the same substance they used to give in the first injection (it's 3 injections not 1 actually if I remember correctly), so she remained fully aware the whole surgery and felt every single thing they perfomed on her. her expirience is quite terrifying.

 

[bov]

The way they kill people by lethal injection is painless. You are doped out of your head on barbiturates before your body systems start to shut down

No. Every aspect of the death penalty is cruel including the way victims die. Even with N, it's possible it's not painless, that it's like drowning but being unable to move.

 

[Aap]

Your memory is fuzzy, or you are getting nominal information. 3 drug Lethal injection protocols (of which states are moving away from) involve a sedative (usually barbiturate (pentobarbital or thiopental) but occasionally etomidate or propofol) plus a paralytic plus KCl. The only surgery that would include all three would be a surgery where the heart is stopped (e.g. some coronary artery bypass grafts, valve surgery, heart/lung transplant).

While it is EXCEEDINGLY rare, people can be conscious during surgery, if not due to incompetence then due to an empty anesthetic gas cylinder. Citing an extremely rare surgical complication as a justification that lethal injection is painful makes as much sense as saying people are conscious during surgery.

@bov My friend, you are certainly entitled to your own opinions that the death penalty is cruel, but not your own facts.

Lethal injection by pentobarbital is as humane as it gets. You would be laughed out of a vets office claiming euthanasia by pentobarbital is inhumane. I have literally felt hearts stop before the plunger is fully depressed.

The claims of flash pulmonary edema causing a drowning sensation are dubious, and in any case occur long after the individual is unconscious. It is like claiming surgery under anesthesia is cruel and inhumane. It's bullshit.

 

[Meditation guide]

I don't mean to open a big can of worms, and I know the megathreads exist. I'm just concerned for whoever believes this.

N seems pretty painless.

 

[bov]

Your memory is fuzzy, or you are getting nominal information. 3 drug Lethal injection protocols (of which states are moving away from) involve a sedative (usually barbiturate (pentobarbital or thiopental) but occasionally etomidate or propofol) plus a paralytic plus KCl. The only surgery that would include all three would be a surgery where the heart is stopped (e.g. some coronary artery bypass grafts, valve surgery, heart/lung transplant).

While it is EXCEEDINGLY rare, people can be conscious during surgery, if not due to incompetence then due to an empty anesthetic gas cylinder. Citing an extremely rare surgical complication as a justification that lethal injection is painful makes as much sense as saying people are conscious during surgery.

@bov My friend, you are certainly entitled to your own opinions that the death penalty is cruel, but not your own facts.

Lethal injection by pentobarbital is as humane as it gets. You would be laughed out of a vets office claiming euthanasia by pentobarbital is inhumane. I have literally felt hearts stop before the plunger is fully depressed.

The claims of flash pulmonary edema causing a drowning sensation are dubious, and in any case occur long after the individual is unconscious. It is like claiming surgery under anesthesia is cruel and inhumane. It's bullshit.

I was being a little dramatic; I think my main concern when it comes to how the death penalty is carried out (aside from my conviction that it shouldn't exist) is that the drugs are sometimes administered carelessly; I've heard that the third, painful one is sometimes injected before they've checked that the patient is unconscious? I know there's a lot of misinformation out there though. I'm just always inclined to believe rumors of incarcerated people being treated worse than house pets.

 

[justanotherstar]

I keep seeing people talk about death by gunshot, death by train, or death by jumping under certain logistical conditions, as examples of instantaneous, painless death or something close to it.

I don't mean to open a big can of worms, and I know the megathreads exist. I'm just concerned for whoever believes this.

I think it's less about there being no pain but that the method is almost immediate and therefore suffering would be limited and in some cases instant in the right circumstances. Like it would all be about the planning, never understood the logic of standing in front of a local train service but if I stood in front of a high speed train in the country/outskirts where they travel fullspeed - i cannot see how a head first or similar impact would result in anything but a very gory but quick end.

i guess people can endure the thought of minimal suffering and that's why these types of methods are appealing but I guess none of us will ever know the truth as we can't come back from the beyond to let each other know

 

[Aap]

I have certainly seen movies and the like claim that KCl is extremely painful when injected. I have never seen any medical source make that claim. I can't fathom a mechanism that would make it more painful than commonly used drugs such as propofol or toradol.

completely agree the prison system is broken.

 

[Deleted member 23726]

I think it is, you're out cold in 10 seconds or so and know nothing about it. No reaction from your body either, it doesn't realise it's breathing in a gas. Shame it's so complicated to set up properly (with diving mask, adapters, etc, or a regulator and a chicken roasting bag on your head).

Do you think mentally it's painless too? Or do you think before death we see scary stuff? I heard people who have had horrific near death experiences where they imagined lots of disturbing things and I really am scared of experiencing that.

 

[Nexuno]

I think death is a complex process. There are psychological and mental factors that are not taken too much into consideration IMO. I had a NDE more than 20 years ago and I can clearly remember two stages: the stage when the body is failing (which is terrible) and the "stage of the mind" (which is even worse); of the twos the most difficult part of dying is the mental factor. I'm talking about dealing with what you "are" once you loose contact with your body and your mind is still alive and conscious. I'm pretty sure that the last moment (at least my last moment) will be painful, I don't even think that a painless death is possible, at least for me. I think the mental factor is the most painful and difficult aspect of dying, something that require a lot of training. I know that there are means to overcome the problem but I would like to go through that pain because I want to experience once again what came after the "mental pain" stage.

 

[Deleted member 23726]

No. Every aspect of the death penalty is cruel including the way victims die. Even with N, it's possible it's not painless, that it's like drowning but being unable to move.

Do you think the same thing about nitrogen? That it might not be completely painless but rather that we're paralyzed? I heard nembutal should be completely painless

i guess it's not instantaneously

Why?

 

[bov]

No. Aap knows the science better, and has explained elsewhere.

No. Aap knows the science better, and has explained elsewhere.

 

[Aap]

Sweet baby Jesus.