Amount Of Pain Experienced During Various Methods of Execution

[exvex]

Electric Chair
Firing Squad
Gas Chamber
Guillotine
Hanging
Self-Inflicted gunshot wound to the head

Provided the act is not botched, but is performed swiftly and successfully, how much physical pain might be experienced during these various methods of termination?

[Max Torque]

In theory, the electric chair should be painless, since, according to this site with electric chair specifications:

Generally, unconsciousness occurs in 4.16 milliseconds, which is 1/240 part of a second. This is twenty-four (24) times as fast as the subjects conscious nervous system can record pain.

By contrast, here's what they have to say about hanging:

The executee will be dropped a distance as defined in the Drop Distance Table and his acceleration will be stopped by the rope around his neck. This will result in the breakage of several neck bones and the severing of the spinal cord within a time period of less than a second. The executee will immediately enter medical shock. He will probably experience one brief instant (measured in milliseconds) of pain before he loses all consciousness and all sensation. His body will go limp with paralysis. He will then strangle due to the lack of oxygen. He should be brain dead in something more than six minutes and heart dead in about eight.

[exvex]

>unconsciousness occurs in 4.16 milliseconds,
>which is 1/240 part of a second.
>This is twenty-four (24) times as fast as
>the subjects conscious nervous system can record pain.
I had no idea. Hanging sounds a lot worse.

[alice_in_wonderland]

Well, of course another persons experience of pain is pretty hard to quantify; but, if I was going to go from least to most painful (physically) my list would look a bit like this:

Self-Inflicted gunshot
firing squad
guillotine
gas chamber
electric chair
hanging

gas chamber and electric chair seem pretty close to me.

[Jake4]

I'm pretty sure it takes longer than 4.16 ms to die in a gas chamber.

[DocCathode]

Originally posted by alice_in_wonderland


gas chamber and electric chair seem pretty close to me.

From Charles Panati's Extraordinary Endings Of Practically Everything And Everybody

One of the most famous of such experiments was conducted in 1960 with convicted murderer Caryl Chessman. Chessman agreed to inhale the lethal fumes and blink and nod his head to indicate varying degrees of pain. To the horror of doctors and news reporters observing the execution, Chessman signaled vigorously, indicating that the gassing death was agonizing. The next morining, a reporter wrote: "I thought he must be dead but no, there was another agonizing period during which he choked on the gas. And again. And then again. There was a long period, another deep gasp. At the fourth such straining, Chessman's head lolled in a half circle, coming forward so that he faced downward with his chin almost touching his chest. This must be the end. But the dying went on."
Some victims have died relatively quickly after two or three minutes. But the average death process from gassing takes eight or nine minutes, and the longest on record, in North Carolina, took eleven minutes.

Lethal execution would seem to be the most painless.
[Pink Floyd] Just a little pinprick. . .[/Pink Floyd]

[GilaB]

Well, it probably depends on what kind of hanging - a drop with a short stop, with a properly tied knot, should break the neck etc, but without both those things, it'd probably be an agonizing death from suffocation. I've also read (I can't recall where, so no cite) that electrocutions are occasionally screwed up, for example with improper placement/attachment of the electrodes. That was supposed to be a pretty horrible death also.

And self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head sometimes miss enough so that the person doesn't die, but is generally left severely handicapped.

And I was feeling pretty cheerful and non-morbit today, too.

[Hail Ants]

I still say there's no better way to hit the 'off' button on a human than near instant decapitation (i.e. guillotine). I mean, as long as it slices right thru you quickly there is just no way there could be any sensation. You're severing your pain 'generators' from the 'receiver' (your brain). Plus the moment blood stops being pumped thru your brain you black out in a few seconds.

Incedible gruesome for spectators, but probably utterly painless for the subject.

[Rysto]

They tried to do a study on this once, but none of the participants responded.

[VernWinterbottom]

Panati's book, quoted above by Doc discusses hanging, the guillotine, lethal injection and electric chair, too.

Probably available at your local library.

[Kalimero]

Re: Hanging

In our forensic medicine course, the prof told us we wouldn't pass the exam should we mention "neck breaking" as a common consequence of hanging. He said that even in judicial executions, a fracture of the spine would be quite rare.

The main cause of death - according to him - is acute hypoxia of the brain by strangulation of the carotid arteries.

This page says that in judicial hangings, injury of the spinal cord would in fact be common, so I'm not so sure about this.
However:

Regardless of disagreement on theories, most experts agree that death ultimately occurs from cerebral hypoxia and ischemic neuronal death.

As a proof, our prof showed us a video of a man who filmed himself committing suicide:
The noose was made in a way it wouldn't tighten around his neck, so neck-breaking could be ruled out. Nevertheless, the guy became unconsious in about two seconds after he let himself drop into the noose. His body continued to perform some bizarre movements for some time, like he was trying to breath, but he was clearly unconscious. According to our prof, these movements could go on for quite some time and it could take half an hour until the heart eventually stopped beating.

(And yes, this video has been the most disturbing thing I've ever seen.)


Thus, hanging, while certainly a "slow" death, should actually be quite "humane", no matter wheter the spinal cord gets injured or not.

[Reader99]

"Provided the act is not botched" is a big if. Here is a link to a list of botched executions.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...scid=8&did=478

[Ranchoth]

Where, exactly, would self inflicted "gunshots to the head" be used for executions?

I imagine, though, that having someone else shooting you in the back of the head (like in China) would be very fast indeed...once the brain is destroyed, whatever inner essence that made up a "person" is dead.

From all accounts, even ones in the United States, the Gas Chamber is the most agonizing method of execution. From what I remember, the Cyanide gas used for the execution blocks the lungs' ability to absorb oxygen from the air, so that executee is left gulping for air that his body can't use anymore. Oddly enough, it was California that used it for the longest time.

Not sure how long a "firing squad" execution would take...but, a half-dozen odd 30-06 rifle bullets hitting you square in in the heart? It can't take very long.

The Guillotine shouldn't take that long, if at all...even if the head was capable of staying alive for a few seconds after decapitation, the shock and force of the blade's impact would probably knock the executee unconscious anyway.

[Phage]

Define "gunshot". I can see that shooting yourself with a .22 could be survivable, but a shotgun would certainly do the trick. It seems to me that a head-box and a single shotgun shell should be the preferred method of execution; it might not be pretty, and the cleanup might be hard, but it could never be painful...

[Reader99]

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html

http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/bldyk10.htm

[Ranchoth]

Hell, a Colt .45 against the back of the skull would probably do the trick, Phage. Maybe a Desert Eagle, just to be safe.

Or...I think some modern slaughterhouses use a pneumatic (hydraulic?) system, basically a narrow piston that is "fired" into the brain at high speeds. Death is still instantaneous, but with the added bonus of not having the skull explode.

[Mister Rik]

Not sure how long a "firing squad" execution would take...but, a half-dozen odd 30-06 rifle bullets hitting you square in in the heart? It can't take very long.

I thought that, in a firing squad execution, only one of the rifleman actually has a live round. The rest have blanks. The live round is assigned randomly, so nobody knows for sure who will fire the deadly shot. I imagine that the shooters would know after the fact, due to recoil differences.

I've heard the same thing about other methods of execution - there are multiple switches to turn on the electric chair or open the trap door on the gallows, and the switches are pulled simultaneously by different people - again, so that nobody knows who specifically killed the condemned man.

I'm open to correction, of course.

[amarone]

Originally posted by Phase42
I thought that, in a firing squad execution, only one of the rifleman actually has a live round. The rest have blanks. The live round is assigned randomly, so nobody knows for sure who will fire the deadly shot.

It's the other way round. One rifleman has a blank, the rest are live.

[Kalimero]

Originally posted by Ranchoth
From what I remember, the Cyanide gas used for the execution blocks the lungs' ability to absorb oxygen from the air, so that executee is left gulping for air that his body can't use anymore.

Actually, cyanide blocks the cell's ability to use the oxygen. So, the cells "suffocte" even though the blood is normally oxygenated.


http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic118.htm

Pathophysiology: Cyanide affects virtually all body tissues, attaching itself to ubiquitous metalloenzymes and rendering them inactive. Its principal toxicity probably results from inactivation of cytochrome oxidase (cytochrome aa3) and, thus, cellular respiration, even in the presence of adequate oxygen stores. Consequently, the tissues with the highest oxygen requirements (eg, brain, heart, liver) are the most profoundly affected by acute cyanide poisoning.

[mske]

Originally posted by Hail Ants
I still say there's no better way to hit the 'off' button on a human than near instant decapitation (i.e. guillotine). I mean, as long as it slices right thru you quickly there is just no way there could be any sensation. You're severing your pain 'generators' from the 'receiver' (your brain). Plus the moment blood stops being pumped thru your brain you black out in a few seconds.

Incedible gruesome for spectators, but probably utterly painless for the subject.

Depends on whether you have resigned yourself to your fate or not... If you don't want to die, I imagine hearing the release of the guillotine and hearing it rumble down towards you would be pretty "painful" from a pychological standpoint.

[exvex]

>From Ranchoth
>Where, exactly, would self inflicted "gunshots to the head"
>be used for executions?
I guess the "self-inflicted" part is optional.
I just put that one in since the firing squad is a heart shot.

>From Reader99
>http://europeanhistory.about.com/library/bldyk10.htm
>The guillotine...
>The current medical consensus is that life does survive,
>for a period of roughly thirteen seconds...
>Conversely, an individual could remain self-aware -
>able to see through their eyes and understand what has
>happened - for much of the thirteen-second period.
Yeow!
I'm going with the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

[Pergau]

MSKE has beaten me to what has to be the most important point.

What about the psychological "torture" of the lead up to the execution? I imagine that it would be pretty depressing to go through the last appeal etc and have an execution date set. Then the preparations - last meal, visit from the priest, last meeting with family, walk to the chamber/gallows, being strapped in or strung up and then the wait until the switch is thrown or the lever is pulled.

Any pain that an execution causes has to be fairly insignificant in relation to that.

[Roches]

As Kalimero explained, cyanide stops cells from using oxygen in cellular respiration -- it prevents the synthesis of ATP, the 'energy currency of the cell', which requires oxygen in the final stages. This doesn't cause simple suffocation -- it causes rapid loss of consciousness because neurons which have been exposed to cyanide are not capable of transmitting signals. The problem with cyanide in judicial executions is that the condemned individual tends to struggle against inhaling the poisonous gas. This is probably a natural response, but tends to prolong their suffering.

Execution by shooting, whether by the military-derived method of several bullets aimed at the heart or the single bullet aimed at the back of the head used in Communist and other totalitarian states, is probably not instantaneous unless done correctly. I would imagine that consciousness ceases almost immediately after several rifle bullets penetrate the heart, but the base-of-the-skull method is only quick if the spinal cord is severed, and accounts of such executions describe some victims surviving for some time.

Lethal injection is probably painless. I don't think it's been described yet, so this is how it generally works:

1. The condemned is given an IV injection of sodium thiopental (Pentothal), which is a highly effective tranquilizer at lower doses but is given in a sufficiently high dose to cause unconsciousness. Most likely, the condemned is unaware of what is happening after this point.
2. After the first injection, the IV line is flushed with saline.
3. Pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant, is given in a sufficiently high dose to stop breathing. (Rather more morbidly, this may also serve to prevent the condemned from twitching or appearing to struggle.)
4. The IV lines are flushed with saline again.
5. A fatal dose of potassium chloride is given. This interrupts the 'pacemaker' responsible for maintaining heartbeat and causes cardiac arrest as well as interfering with the nervous system.

The first two drugs -- perhaps even the first if the dose is sufficiently high -- may be enough to kill the condemned. Also, an oral dose of a benzodiazepine tranquilizer may optionally be given several hours before the execution to calm the condemned. This is the modern equivalent of the old-fashioned shot of whiskey.

Ranchoth, the "captive bolt guns" used in slaughterhouses do not kill cattle. They cause unconsciousness ("stunning") by a blow to the head, which used to be done with a sledgehammer. The cattle are actually killed by cutting their jugular veins with a knife. Vegetarian literature commonly says that some cattle are still conscious when this happens. Other animals are stunned in other methods -- chickens, for example, are stunned with an electric shock and killed by decapitation.

[Malacandra]

Originally posted by DocCathode


Lethal execution would seem to be the most painless.
[Pink Floyd] Just a little pinprick. . .[/Pink Floyd]

I'd hazard a guess that "lethal execution" is in fact the only effective method.

[VernWinterbottom]

And, of course, back in the 1920s, they had. . .oh. . .never mind. . .

[PhilAlex]

There's a book by loompanics called YOU ARE GOING TO JAIL that covers everything, up to execution.

Prisoners don't like the last meeting with their families at all, but most are loathe to deny them one last meeting.

Also, they report to sleep very well the night before the deed.
I can testify to this, btw. Don't ask me how.

Phil


(There's a website out there, listing prisoners last meals)

[Boldface Type]

Originally posted by Rysto
They tried to do a study on this once, but none of the participants responded.

Well, oddly enough, there actually is a peer-reviewed journal article out there, 'The possible pain experienced during execution by different methods.' [Perception 22, 745-753]. Indeed, I even read it once, but unfortunately I don't recall what it says because I was one of the subjects and I am now dead.

[DocCathode]

Originally posted by Malacandra
I'd hazard a guess that "lethal execution" is in fact the only effective method.

I meant, of course, lethal injection