ETA: Would you agree with my assertion that, “In the heart, center of chest, on the same level as your nipples, [DEL]so that your other organs can be salvaged for transplant.[/DEL] [is] Guaranteed, 100% effective.” ? 
Shame to waste a good heart that way. They don’t transplant brains, though, so why not aim there?
According to statistics from his page, “hand gun to the chest” is the least fatal combination when attempting suicide.
Inside a spoiler as may be considered NSFW:
It’s convinced me.
If I were ever to off myself, I’d go with a fifth of Everclear and a bottle of Vicodin.
Pass out, and never wake up.
Nitrogen is the faster/most humane way to die, which is why animal husbandry and agricultural specialists are studying it as a humane form of food animal slaughter. BBC Horizon did a great episode called “how to kill a human being” and I think that part is in part 5 on YouTube.
The most common way people use insert gas hypoxia to end life is using a helium tank like you buy at a party store. They get a crock pot liner bag or one of those bags you use to cook a pot roast or Turkey then take a shoelace and packing tape to make a drawstring like in sweatpants or a hoodie then attach fish tank tubing to the helium tank, lay down, and find a way to get the helium coming out, either by taping the valve down or buying a replacement valve that allows for uninterrupted flow.
Put the bag on your head, put the tube under the bag and tape it in place, then tighten the bag around your neck with the string, turn on the gas and lay down.
Nitrogen takes seconds, helium takes minutes and the body can react to the helium and cause twitching or even feeling hypoxic and the body will act to remove the bag from the head.
With nitrogen, since so much of our atmosphere is nitrogen, the brain doesn’t know anything is wrong so there is no discomfort.
Many people have accidently died when they walk into a room where liquid nitrogen has been spilt or otherwise released and boom they fall down, exposing them to even more nitrogen (it’s heavier than oxygen) and are dead in less than a few minutes if aid is not literally immediate.
I would just like to say some warnings… My Grandfather had worked for the railroad. He got fired, and was having a miserable life.
So, he took his shotgun, went down to the celler, put the shotgun in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
He ended-up blowing the whole bottom part of his face off… But he did not die. He had to, then, drive HIMSELF to the hospital. They said he almost cried the doctor in, he was still so strong.
The next few months were horrific. He was poor, and out of work;so he couldn’t afford plastic surgery. However, they HAD to do a minimum amount, so he ended up racking-up about 20,000 in bills. His son, Jim, lived at our house at the time for the entire summer. It always affected Jim, who had to go through this horrible time period for him.
And Grampa lived. My father took over the finances for him and eventually got him out of debt.
He tried again, years later and again failed. Never knew the details that time, but they put him in an insane asylum afterwards and he, ironically, ended-up dying of hardening of the arteries in the hospital ( or that is what they told us).
He had hunted all his life, and that knowledge did not help him to kill himself. So, even “an expert” at guns failed TWICE.
You can greatly screw up your life so it is far worse than you can even imagine.
Slitting wrists NEVER works. They just clog up with blood and coagulate.
There is a book called “Final Exit” which details how to use large tanks of helium and a plastic face bag, along with alcohol or sleeping drugs. You can find a PDF if you search hard.
It goes through every method, and why they don’t work.
And, hopefully, in the end, you decide not to do it. Right now will be over soon enough, and you will get happy eventually. Strive towards life, not dwelling on thoughts of dying. Death comes all too fast.
The purpose of ‘swallowing the muzzle’ is to point the muzzle (last 2" of the barrel) to the medulla (brain stem), which is the ‘lizard brain’ - it controls the critical autonomic nervous system - heart, lungs, etc…
Just nicking it will pretty much be instant death.
Please check the anatomy before aiming firearms.
I read that somewhere, too. The theory was that since water can’t be compressed, the expanding gases from the gun will just push it aside, so it causes the head to explode.
Why would nitrogen be quicker than helium? They’re both inert gases. It doesn’t matter that nitrogen is heavier since the only thing either are doing is replacing oxygen. The brain doesn’t know one from the other.
On the second point, the discomfort of suffocating is not not caused by what one is breathing in, but rather an accumulation of exhaled carbon dioxide. Perhaps you’d pass out before the concentration of CO2 builds up too much in the bag. But to be safe you should use a non-rebreather mask, since that would let the CO2 be vented from the mask, preventing a buildup of CO2.
In Hannah and Her Sisters, Woody Allen’s character botches his suicide because he’s so sweaty from nervousness, the gun muzzle slips away from his temple. Mouth is the way to go.
The problem is that people seem to think that the muzzle being anywhere inside the mouth - regardless of direction - will work.
It is little different than a rifle under the chin - possible, but more likely to just blow off the face.
And a mouth full of water will last exactly as long as it takes the expanding gas/water to breech the lips.
The water would do nothing but distract from the proper aiming - get a revolver with a 6" barrel - and stick it all the way in - the muzzle will be pointing at the base of the skull - where the medulla is.
The medulla is also what you are aiming for when you hit someone in the back of the head - bumping the medulla against the skull is the point of that exercise (IIRC).
I know where to find the answer to this. There is a suicide discussion board where people discuss the planning of their suicides, post rough drafts of their notes, discuss what methods they have tried and why they failed, and what is the best way. If you post the question there you will get very informed advice on which way is best, you might even find someone who tried one method or the other and failed. Suicidal Survivors Archives - the suicide project
I worked with a guy who accidentally was exposed to CO, and passed out in the bathtub. Someone found him before he died. But he said it was really pleasant while he was poisoned, he felt a little high and a little sleepy, and was enjoying sloshing warm water around in a repetitive way.
He also said he had a killer headache the next day, but if you succeed in killing yourself, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Apples and probably other fruits are often stored in “controlled atmosphere” (no oxygen) to slow down the metabolic process of aging. Farmworkers accidentally die from time to time by walking into the storage room without realizing there is no oxygen. I don’t think there is any pain or sensation of hazard. Our programming isn’t smart enough to check for O2, all we detect is CO2. I guess if you want to kill yourself, finding such a warehouse and walking in may be a reliable and painless to it. Problematic for the farmer, but if you carried a suicide note, I bet he wouldn’t get in trouble.
I understand the fur industry already kills most of its animals with gas. (Probably an inert gas, like nitrogen, since that’s a lot safer for the staff than CO.) No risk of damaging the fur that way.
No, but he might need years of therapy. Don’t do it.
Commiting suicide will almost always mess up other people. I guess if you are dying of something painful and decide to speed up the process by taking an overdose of pain pills or sleeping pills, you probably aren’t hurting other people too much. But pretty much every other scenario does. I have to think it’s worse being the train conductor who can’t brake when he sees a guy on the tracks, or the pedestrian who sees your body drop to the ground right in front of him. And if you shoot yourself in the dead, that must be pretty horrendous for whoever discovers the body and whoever has to clean up after it. And especially for whoever lives whereever you did it. I don’t see this method as more antisocial than the other methods described here.
Interesting.
But, at the top of the page:
First line in “Read this first”:
Bummer.
I did, however, bookmark it and will peruse.
Just as an experiment:
Would someone with a couple of hours to waste care to try this:
Only IF YOU HAVE NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE, from a blank google screen, how long before you can list 10 ways to suicide - down to the last detail.
No ‘Jump off Golden Gate Bridge*’ - how far would you need to fall, onto what surface, to GUARANTEE death?
(jumping of GG Bridge is survivable - one poor wretch was fished out and revived.)
-
- if you must use the bridge: every suicide has jumped from near the South Tower and facing the city. Be different. Plus, there are some large rocks near the north tower.
Also remember a client at my university campus chapter of the Texas Commission for the Blind. I used to read textbooks and proctor tests for blind students as a part-time job. He was blind due to a failed suicide attempt. Tried to shoot himself in the temple but only succeeded in blinding himself.
At school in Hawaii, one of my fellow students was a therapeutic nurse who had worked with lots of failed jumpers. He – and his roommate, in the same profession – said the rule of thumb was jump from the fourth floor. Said he’d had to work with lots of people who had jumped from the third floor only to fuck themselves up for the rest of their days, while he couldn’t recall anyone from the fourth floor on up. However, I have read of people surviving falls from fourth and fifth floors. My condominium building is 36 stories. Off the top of there would probably do the trick.
I have never understood the temple shot - yes, if you get the angle right, and use a large caliber weapon, it is possible (yes, I did see Bud’s memorable exit).
But the temple is alongside the frontal lobes, and you want more than that gone.
The two suicide (yea, sure it was the lyrics) attempts using shotgun under the chin were classic ‘why you don’t screw around with the front parts’.
Wow, that’s quite a challenge! Ten fundamentally different, detailed, fire-proof ways of killing yourself, on the top of my head! I can think of some. But I think this really deserves a thread of it’s own. You start it; I’ll follow with my suggestions!
I must say this thread - over the years - has kept me alive. I don’t think I could live with the shame of being a failed suicide. 