Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.
The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.
It’s been done, in industrial accidents and other cases, but helium is probably more common for average people to experience. Both gasses are inert (have no effect on our biology) and displace oxygen.
P.S. I believe there’s even some companies that offer hypoxia training for pilots and mountain climbers using increased nitrogen instead of reduced pressure. (Such training helps pilots recognize the warning signs so they can activate supplementary oxygen.) This lets them do it without a special pressure chamber, and a quicker recovery to standard atmosphere if someone has a problem.