Party store helium

[sadaboutitall]

So I know this has all but been ruled out as normal helium tanks sold at big box retailers aren't 100% helium anymore but an 80%-20% mixture.

But I think there's something missing in this thought process. It's not 20% oxygen, it's 20% atmospheric air added.

Atmospheric air is only 20% oxygen to start with. So doing the math, 20% atmospheric air at 20% oxygen comes out to 4% oxygen total in the tanks mixture.

Below 10% ambient oxygen enters the extreme danger zone and below 5% is fatal in minutes.

This post is definitely not to try it and you should NOT. But I'm wondering why it's seen as a non starter when the math works out.

Reddit has threads on the subreddit for bereavement as recently as last year of family members buying them from party stores as little ago as last year.

A college girl from Texas died from helium, the authorities didn't go into detail of her setup, but there was no mention of this site, which I think they'd find any opportunity to mention, which leaves little resources to setup a sophisticated rig that is documented in the resource thread.

Again do not attempt this! This is just more discussion.

 

[Lost_Dawns]

the pain from suffocation comes from your body sensing carbon dioxide building up not the lack of oxygen. it will still build up even with just 4% oxygen so will still be painful. this is just my guess, probably incorrect.

 

[DeathSweetDeath]

Ugh, the math doesn't work out. If it did, they wouldn't have started adding air to it to prevent asphyxiation in the first place, as there would've been zero point in doing so. It is a non starter, plenty of people have failed with it & are living proof of that.

The question, though, is why would you promote helium that will cause a failed attempt, when pure helium and pure nitrogen can be easily obtained? How very odd.

Was the Rice university student a member of SaSu? Idk, but there are other ways to learn all one would need to know about this method including the pph. As long as someone has a solid understanding of how the method works and why, it wouldn't exactly be rocket science to figure out the details from there.