Based on Timothy McVeigh’s execution, I had this question:
He was pronounced dead at 7:14am CST. If, at 7:14:30 – 7:15am paramedics tried to revive him using all medical technology available, could they revive him (or anyone else in that situation) or does that lethal cocktail lead you to the point of no return?
A morbid question, for sure, but i a last minute stay came 30 seconds too late, could it be possible to revive?
I can’t believe that it would be possible. The condemned first gets a lethal dose of the sedative Sodium Thiopental, which in itself I’d think one couldn’t possibly survive. Next, he gets two more massive doses of lethal drugs, Pancuronium Bromide (muscle relaxant-collapses diaphragm and lungs) and Potassium Chloride (stops heart beat).
Now, I’m no doctor, but unless I’m mistaken, the only way to counteract a lethal agent in the bloodstream is to administer a counteragent of some kind. I just don’t see how counteractants for all three could possibly be administered to a body with a non-beating heart in sufficient amounts to save the person.
The idea of an execution is to make the death of the person total and irrevocable. It’s considered more humane to ensure that the death is absolute, with no risk whatsoever that the person may survive, because survival would certainly mean living as a vegetable.
For loads of info about the death penalty, visit Pro-Death Penalty.
This probably should be moved over to GD but does anyone besides me see the irony in making sure Tim is put to death as painlessly and humanely as possible considering he blew to bits scores of innocent people?
Perhaps being publically drawn and quartered is a bit too violent but how does he deserve to be treated so much better than his victims? Somehow it just doesn’t seem right with me… justice is a strange equalizer.
what about transfusion with oygenated blood and forced circulation by an artificial heart; surely that would flush out most of the drugs, although if they have done irreversible damage to the central nervous system(most of the vital organs could be replaced by transplants), then it’s still curtains.
The answer is that you could resuscitate someone who had been given lethal injection “therapy”…if you wanted to. It would be simple: intubate the patient and put him on a ventilator; maintain circulation by chest compressions or use an aortic balloon pump, or even cardiopulmonary bypass to maintain circulation (as we do during open heart surgery)until the induced hyperkalemia can be treated or “wears off.” There are several ways to treat hyperkalemia. Than pancuronium can also be reversed…just as it is in every surgical procedure where general anesthesia is used.
The point of no return would be when the patient becomes brain dead due to hypoxia, which is the ultimate cause of death in lethal injection executions.
If you wanted to “really kill” someone by lethal injection (so that even heroic resucscitation efforts would be doomed, you would have to use an irreversible killing agent. The Guillotine comes to mind, but I think the poster was referring to an injectable drug…or something less dramatic than decapitation or death by firing squad…How about injecting a bit of cyanide along with the KCl? If you really want to…