Just before 8am on Friday, IST,
Kenneth Eugene Smith
choked to death on nitrogen, a gas he had breathed for 58 years from the moment of his birth. Ordinary air is roughly four parts
nitrogen
and one part oxygen, so Smith’s respiratory profile wasn’t peculiar. What killed him was 100% nitrogen pumped into a sealed mask, so his body couldn’t get any oxygen at all.
It was an execution ordered by the US state of Alabama for a murder Smith had committed 36 years ago, in 1988, when
Ronald Reagan
was President. And it was peculiar because no government has ordered death by nitrogen before.
Alabama had claimed it would be a painless death: “perhaps the most humane method of execution ever devised”. Smith was expected to pass out in seconds and die in minutes. He did, but it took all of 22 minutes, which is more like half an hour.
Montgomery Advertiser, a 191-year-old Alabama newspaper, reported that “Smith appeared to convulse and shake vigorously for about four minutes after the nitrogen gas apparently began flowing…It was another two to three minutes before he appeared to lose consciousness”.
No scientific study of effects
So Smith suffered torture for 6-7 minutes. The scientific name for his experience is ‘hypoxia’ or oxygen deprivation. What happens when hypoxia is caused by breathing pure nitrogen? A BBC report says it “causes the cells to break down and leads to death”. Scientific American says, “A person can breathe pure nitrogen and not immediately realise there is a problem, but their cells and organs are slowly being deprived of the oxygen needed to function and will rapidly start to break down.”
However, there’s no research on the effects of pure nitrogen on humans as it would be unethical. There was a brief experiment in 1963, The New York Times says, but it ended with three healthy volunteers getting seizures “within 15 to 20 seconds of breathing pure nitrogen”.
The case for using gas
A 2014 article in Slate, titled ‘Death by Nitrogen’, is often cited by those who favour execution by this gas. It says, “The condemned prisoner would detect no abnormal sensation breathing the odourless, tasteless gas, and would not undergo the painful experience of suffocation, which is caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, not by lack of oxygen.”
It also suggests that the prisoner’s last moments might not be unpleasant – “It’s even possible that death by nitrogen gas is mildly euphoric. Deep-sea divers exposed to an excess of nitrogen develop a narcosis, colorfully known as ‘raptures of the deep,’ similar to drunkenness or nitrous oxide inhalation.”
Even vets are against it
But without thorough research, how could Alabama be so sanguine about the effects of pure nitrogen? Did its confidence stem from animal studies? A paper published in American Journal of Veterinary Research in 1978 had indeed claimed that dogs euthanised with pure nitrogen had “displayed no detectable signs of pain before unconsciousness occurred”.
In that experiment, 34 dogs placed in a chamber flushed with pure nitrogen had averaged 40 seconds to unconsciousness and 204 seconds to death. The study had concluded that death by nitrogen was “humane, safe, and economically feasible”. American Veterinary Medical Association, however, opposes this method for mammals, saying it is “distressing”.
What’s known from accidents
So, scientists’ knowledge about the effects of nitrogen hypoxia is mainly based on industrial accidents. The gas is widely used, from fertiliser plants to potato wafer packaging units, and between 1992 and 2002, some 80 US workers died of nitrogen asphyxiation. A major nitrogen leak at a poultry processing unit in January 2021 killed six workers.
A safety bulletin published by US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in June 2003 said, “Breathing an oxygen deficient atmosphere can have serious and immediate effects, including unconsciousness after only one or two breaths...As the oxygen concentration falls below 16%, the brain sends commands to the breathing control centre, causing the victim to breathe faster and deeper.” Which only makes matters worse.
While Smith was given 100% nitrogen, the safety bulletin says a person would experience “inability to move, loss of consciousness, convulsions, death” with air containing less than 10% oxygen. So, an execution could go terribly wrong if the prisoner’s mask leaks, allowing oxygen to enter, thereby delaying unconsciousness and death.
As Time reported on Thursday, even Dr
Philip Nitschke
, who has invented a nitrogen pod for assisted suicide, had cautioned that “Smith’s facial hair, jaw movements and involuntary movements as he feels the effect of the nitrogen could impact the (mask) seal. If there are leaks, Smith could continue to draw in enough oxygen, ‘to prolong into what could be a rather macabre, slow process of slowly not getting enough oxygen’.”
English (US) ·