autumnal
Enlightened
- Feb 4, 2020
- 1,950
Dear All,
I have seen confusion about these areas raised a bit recently, especially in relation to Inert Gases/Exit Bags and the Debreather. So thought I'd give a very basic physiology lesson. Similar explanations are doubtless on many websites and textbooks, but obviously without the specific suicide-specific slant relevant to here.
Breathing 101 - a basic guide to respiration and suicide
How we breathe
Our bodies need oxygen in order to survive. The air we breathe in normally contains sufficient levels of oxygen for our survival. In the lungs, our bodies take the oxygen out of the air we breathed in, and send it around the body in the bloodstream so it can oxygenate the cells, and what is leftover in the lungs after this extraction is called carbon dioxide which we then breathe out as a waste product.
A quirk of our monitoring
Key to how Inert Gases/Exit Bags and the Debreather work is the following crucial point: our bodies don't monitor our levels of oxygen in order to know when we need to take each breath, or to tell us when we are getting dangerously low on oxygen. Instead, our bodies monitor the opposite part of the equation - our levels of carbon dioxide. Because carbon dioxide is a direct byproduct of breathing, our levels of carbon dioxide in the body are usually inversely related to our levels of oxygen in the body. So high oxygen always means low carbon dioxide, and low oxygen always means high carbon dioxide.
Example
If you take in a deep breath, then place your hand covering your mouth and nose, then after a white you start to feel suffocated. This is because the body is detecting rising levels of carbon dioxide in the lungs.
Carbon dioxide levels, a natural setting and the survival instinct
Because of this quirk in how our bodies (indirectly) monitor oxygen levels, this means that we only ever technically notice dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide. We don't ever directly notice dangerously low levels of oxygen. Now in a natural setting this quirk is largely irrelevant , because levels of those two gases always interact in a predictable way. If we have high levels of carbon dioxide because we are low in levels of oxygen, the body takes automatic and instinctive measures to make us take a breath. If we can't breathe in order to lower our levels of carbon dioxide, we start to feel suffocated and distressed. These feelings of suffocation and distress are what trigger the survival instinct (SI) and can result in us instinctively tearing off bags or masks despite the fact that when thinking rationally we may strongly wish to die.
Controlling carbon dioxide in a confined environment
Where this quirk of the body makes an actual difference is when it comes to man-made altering of gas content in order to fool the body's survival urges. If you can control the types and amount of gases in a confined environment (whether it be a bag, a mask or even an entire sealed room) then you can deliberately reduce the amount of oxygen (in order to cause death) but do so without raising the levels of carbon dioxide (which is what causes the feelings of suffocation). The method by which this is achieved will differ somewhat between Inert Gases/Exit Bags and the Debreather. But the gist of both is that they are a confined environment where we can reduce oxygen levels without correspondingly raising carbon dioxide levels.
Inert Gas and Exit Bag
With Inert Gas and an Exit Bag, the main thing to realise is that the inert gas doesn't actively do anything to kill us. It's not a poison or a drug. All it does is not contain any oxygen, and take up space that could otherwise be filled with oxygen. When we fill an Exit Bag with inert gas. and quickly secure it over our heads, we are plunged into a confined environment that has almost zero oxygen. However, because the inert gas is still connected to the bag and flowing into it, any carbon dioxide we breathe out is quickly flushed out of the gap around the neck and replaced with more inert gas. So we don't notice the lack of oxygen, because our bodies never directly notice a lack of oxygen, and we also don't notice an increase in carbon dioxide, because the carbon dioxide is being flushed out of the bag. So we're just breathing a whole bunch of inert nothingness. Therefore we just feel fine for the short period of time before we lose consciousness and die from lack of oxygen.
The Debreather
The Debreather also relies on our quirk of not noticing low levels of oxygen. Essentially it is a closed, airtight circuit, comprised of our own lungs, a mask, tubing, a filter and an inflatable bag as an artificial set of lungs. If this system had no filter, then we would breathe out carbon dioxide into the inflatable bag, breathe back in that same air from the inflatable bag and notice the increasing levels of carbon dioxide and start to feel suffocated. But the addition of a filter means the carbon dioxide is cleaned or 'scrubbed' out of our exhaled air, and this exhaled air flows to the inflatable bag where it awaits us breathing it back in. When we breathe it back in, it has lower levels of oxygen, because the whole circuit is sealed and we are using up more and more of the total limited amount of oxygen on each breath. But because the carbon dioxide is being scrubbed, we don't notice any raised levels of carbon dioxide, and there is nothing to make our bodies notice anything is wrong. So we breathe normally from this closed circuit until we lose consciousness and die from lack of oxygen.
Why regular suffocation fails
The success of these two methods also helps explain the highly likely failure of just using a plastic bag sealed tightly over the head without any kind of gas involved. In that closed environment, we consume all of the available oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. We quickly notice these rising levels of carbon dioxide in each breath we take, and this triggers feelings of suffocation in the body and the instinct to fight our way to breathe. This is why even large amounts of drugs, alcohol or willpower are unlikely to beat the survival instinct during that method. The only way this could be successful is if you restrain your hands to prevent you acting on the survival instinct and removing the bag. Bear in mind, however, that such a death is very distressing and far from the peaceful journey involved in Inert Gases or the Debreather. Once the survival instinct kicks in, you are likely to feel as desperate and distraught as if someone else had snuck up behind a non-suicidal you and tried to suffocate you to death in the same way.
Conclusion and disclaimer
These are just basic explanations of the principles involved, but hopefully people find them useful. I'm not a doctor, so may well have glossed over some parts or even the occasional minor error. But the gist of things should be apparent.
I have seen confusion about these areas raised a bit recently, especially in relation to Inert Gases/Exit Bags and the Debreather. So thought I'd give a very basic physiology lesson. Similar explanations are doubtless on many websites and textbooks, but obviously without the specific suicide-specific slant relevant to here.
Breathing 101 - a basic guide to respiration and suicide
How we breathe
Our bodies need oxygen in order to survive. The air we breathe in normally contains sufficient levels of oxygen for our survival. In the lungs, our bodies take the oxygen out of the air we breathed in, and send it around the body in the bloodstream so it can oxygenate the cells, and what is leftover in the lungs after this extraction is called carbon dioxide which we then breathe out as a waste product.
A quirk of our monitoring
Key to how Inert Gases/Exit Bags and the Debreather work is the following crucial point: our bodies don't monitor our levels of oxygen in order to know when we need to take each breath, or to tell us when we are getting dangerously low on oxygen. Instead, our bodies monitor the opposite part of the equation - our levels of carbon dioxide. Because carbon dioxide is a direct byproduct of breathing, our levels of carbon dioxide in the body are usually inversely related to our levels of oxygen in the body. So high oxygen always means low carbon dioxide, and low oxygen always means high carbon dioxide.
Example
If you take in a deep breath, then place your hand covering your mouth and nose, then after a white you start to feel suffocated. This is because the body is detecting rising levels of carbon dioxide in the lungs.
Carbon dioxide levels, a natural setting and the survival instinct
Because of this quirk in how our bodies (indirectly) monitor oxygen levels, this means that we only ever technically notice dangerously high levels of carbon dioxide. We don't ever directly notice dangerously low levels of oxygen. Now in a natural setting this quirk is largely irrelevant , because levels of those two gases always interact in a predictable way. If we have high levels of carbon dioxide because we are low in levels of oxygen, the body takes automatic and instinctive measures to make us take a breath. If we can't breathe in order to lower our levels of carbon dioxide, we start to feel suffocated and distressed. These feelings of suffocation and distress are what trigger the survival instinct (SI) and can result in us instinctively tearing off bags or masks despite the fact that when thinking rationally we may strongly wish to die.
Controlling carbon dioxide in a confined environment
Where this quirk of the body makes an actual difference is when it comes to man-made altering of gas content in order to fool the body's survival urges. If you can control the types and amount of gases in a confined environment (whether it be a bag, a mask or even an entire sealed room) then you can deliberately reduce the amount of oxygen (in order to cause death) but do so without raising the levels of carbon dioxide (which is what causes the feelings of suffocation). The method by which this is achieved will differ somewhat between Inert Gases/Exit Bags and the Debreather. But the gist of both is that they are a confined environment where we can reduce oxygen levels without correspondingly raising carbon dioxide levels.
Inert Gas and Exit Bag
With Inert Gas and an Exit Bag, the main thing to realise is that the inert gas doesn't actively do anything to kill us. It's not a poison or a drug. All it does is not contain any oxygen, and take up space that could otherwise be filled with oxygen. When we fill an Exit Bag with inert gas. and quickly secure it over our heads, we are plunged into a confined environment that has almost zero oxygen. However, because the inert gas is still connected to the bag and flowing into it, any carbon dioxide we breathe out is quickly flushed out of the gap around the neck and replaced with more inert gas. So we don't notice the lack of oxygen, because our bodies never directly notice a lack of oxygen, and we also don't notice an increase in carbon dioxide, because the carbon dioxide is being flushed out of the bag. So we're just breathing a whole bunch of inert nothingness. Therefore we just feel fine for the short period of time before we lose consciousness and die from lack of oxygen.
The Debreather
The Debreather also relies on our quirk of not noticing low levels of oxygen. Essentially it is a closed, airtight circuit, comprised of our own lungs, a mask, tubing, a filter and an inflatable bag as an artificial set of lungs. If this system had no filter, then we would breathe out carbon dioxide into the inflatable bag, breathe back in that same air from the inflatable bag and notice the increasing levels of carbon dioxide and start to feel suffocated. But the addition of a filter means the carbon dioxide is cleaned or 'scrubbed' out of our exhaled air, and this exhaled air flows to the inflatable bag where it awaits us breathing it back in. When we breathe it back in, it has lower levels of oxygen, because the whole circuit is sealed and we are using up more and more of the total limited amount of oxygen on each breath. But because the carbon dioxide is being scrubbed, we don't notice any raised levels of carbon dioxide, and there is nothing to make our bodies notice anything is wrong. So we breathe normally from this closed circuit until we lose consciousness and die from lack of oxygen.
Why regular suffocation fails
The success of these two methods also helps explain the highly likely failure of just using a plastic bag sealed tightly over the head without any kind of gas involved. In that closed environment, we consume all of the available oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. We quickly notice these rising levels of carbon dioxide in each breath we take, and this triggers feelings of suffocation in the body and the instinct to fight our way to breathe. This is why even large amounts of drugs, alcohol or willpower are unlikely to beat the survival instinct during that method. The only way this could be successful is if you restrain your hands to prevent you acting on the survival instinct and removing the bag. Bear in mind, however, that such a death is very distressing and far from the peaceful journey involved in Inert Gases or the Debreather. Once the survival instinct kicks in, you are likely to feel as desperate and distraught as if someone else had snuck up behind a non-suicidal you and tried to suffocate you to death in the same way.
Conclusion and disclaimer
These are just basic explanations of the principles involved, but hopefully people find them useful. I'm not a doctor, so may well have glossed over some parts or even the occasional minor error. But the gist of things should be apparent.
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