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UN experts alarmed by Alabama plan to kill prisoner using untried gas method
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
202 points (92.8% liked)
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A poor seal affects air going in and being pulled out, because the outside air can flow past the air next to the mouth and down the exit tube without going through the person's lungs. Especially if the faulty seal is on the exit tube connections, which is the kind of fuck up that the state is fully capable of doing.
Without that circulation, they will keep breathing the same air, which will build up CO2.
The system is complex and you apparently assume it is simple and comparable to a room full of nitrogen. The mask is actually more complex.
You clearly don't know what you are talking about.
I'm not talking out of my ass because I read some random opinions online. Are you a University lecturer that teaches courses on the medical effects of pressurized gasses? I am. Do you have certification granting you authority to service and inspect medical gas systems, regulators, full-face masks, and pressure vessels? I do.
A blocked exhalation valve and a bad seal are not the same thing. They're actually the opposite, though a blocked valve can result in a bad seal as the pressure inside the mask inceases. But the escaping high-pressure gas will result in a venturi effect that will pull away the exhaled gasses.
It's actually harder to screw it up with a mask versus a room because the small volume of air compared to the necessary rate of flow causes the air to be more turbulent and prevents dead-air spaces. Basically, the incoming nitrogen flushes out the contents of the mask unless the seal is so bad that the nitrogen doesn't flow in the mask at all, in which case the CO2 escapes into the room through the same shitty seals that don't contain the Nitrogen.
The biggest risk is someone simply forgetting to turn the valve to let in the nitrogen, though that's dead-simple to prevent with a 1-way gasket that allows outside air in if the pressure in the mask drops below outside pressure (when the victim inhales). Though in that particular case it is important that the CO2 not be allowed to form a dead zone, which is done by having more 1-way gaskets in front of the mouth and nose that doesn't allow exhaled gasses back.
You know - the same high-tech shit they use in the base of $12 snorkels that work for decades in salt water.
First, I doubt your claimed credentials because you are an anonymous person on the internet.
Second, the actual process they are using was provided in a highly reacted version that experts have pointed out makes the process unclear. The only reason to hide this information is to obscure the fact that it was poorly designed.
Third, the state is unlikely to have someone who is qualified to design and implement this process correctly because people who work with medical systems are unlikely to be involved with the death penalty, and this is not the same thing as a snorkel or they would be using that.
All that said, you keep acting like it is simple while dancing around the fact that they keep fucking up simple things when executing people. Who cares how easy it is to make chocolate milk when the person who is making it still fucks it up?
You really don't seem to understand how little is required to make it work.
This snorkel mask and a hose to a nitrogen canister would be incredibly effective.
I'm not even joking. They made a 3D-printable adapter to the mask for attaching N99 filters. It's safe because it isolates incoming and outgoing air, which would make it work great.
And that's a hundred mask. The final design would obviously have more going on. For a couple hundred you can have one with an on-demand regulator operating just fine.
Or just use a SCBA (firefighting) mask hooked up to a nitrogen tank.
Are they doing that or just using something cobbled together from home depot leftovers? That is the concern.
The hundred dollar thing I just showed you IS a Home Depot solution.
Or they could grab a decommissioned mask from any fire department and hook it up to a nitrogen tank they got from Home Depot and it would work even better as a regulated system.
Or they can use a 40 dollar painting respirator hooked up to the nitrogen tank. That would also work great as a positive pressure system.
Or it wouldn't work at all. That's the whole idea. It's really hard to fuck it up, and if you do, then nothing happens at all.
Either it allows the nitrogen in and the CO2 out, or the nitrogen pressure pops the seal on a jammed mask and they can breathe just fine, or it doesn't show any air movement at all because the gas isn't on which is blindingly obvious within the first second and the mask is removed.
All it is is displacing regular 21/78 air with hypoxic air (doesn't even need to be pure N2 - lethal hypoxia is around 0.1PPO²) - neither of which contain enough CO2 to give the sensation of suffocation.