Latest News on the situation. The Government still doesn’t seem to have released the info about the gas used. And I smell a pit thread coming about the whole situation.
Things like
[QUOTE]
Podlesny questioned Russian television footage that showed the captors’ corpses in the theater amid liquor bottles and syringes. ``They didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t swear. They were very disciplined,’’ <snip>Podlesny and Georgy Vasilyev, producer of Nord-Ost, disputed Russian officials’ statement that the guerrillas had begun shooting hostages before dawn and prompting the special forces’ assault. <snip>
I heard that one of the complicating factors may have been that the testing of the gas (whenever that happened) is likely to have taken place in a battlefield situation, and was possibly never intended for use in a confined area, hence the high casualties. Seems reasonable, although doesn’t help in identification.
That wouldn’t work in a theatre, where the seating is sloped.
Whatever they used, anaesthesia is a tricky thing (which is why in operating theatres you have one (or more) person whose job is specifically to administer it and closely monitor the state of the patient.
It’s all about dosage; too low a dose would leave some people (including terrorists) conscious, too high a dose would kill everyone; a dose in the middle renders everyone unconscious (or incapacitated), but kills some of them.
The same thing happens when they shoot lions (or whatever) with tranquiliser darts in zoos; they have to tailor the dose to the bodyweight of the animal so that it doesn’t either kill them or not work.
after the hijacking of the jets last sept. some people wondered about having some sort of “knockout gas” on board that the pilots could trigger in an emergency.
“experts” claimed it would be too dangerous due to unknown medical conditions of people on the plane. many could have a bad reaction to the gas.
seeing how things went in russia i can understand why the experts said “no” to using a “knockout gas” on a plane.
you knew they would try something to stop the stand off in russia. i believe the reckoning was, how many more would die if the explosives went off and dealing with a raging fire in the theatr?
the doctors treating the hostages should have been told what would help neutralize the gas.
According to this AP story, the gas used was fentanyl, or a drug closely related to it.
This info was released by US officials. How they discovered it is not stated. Possibly the Russians responded to American demands about info to treat American hostages. That’s only my supposition, however, based on the juztaposition of info about treatment of American hostages within the story.
Wouldn’t that be a bitch, if the Russians let America know to save American citizens (and keep the aid money flowing?), but let their own citizens die.
If it was fentanyl, that would go along with what one source said about naloxone reviving patients. Naloxone (which is the generic name, despite what it says above) is a specific antidote for overdoses of opiates like fentanyl. They probably could have saved quite a few of those people if they weren’t so obsessed with keeping it a secret.
That’s sad… telling the doctors what types of antidotes to try wouldn’t require telling them the specifics of the chemical compound and dosage (Narcan – and atropine – work against multiple toxins) Those with the knowledge to figure it out would do so anyway. Some old habits die hard, I guess – remember the Kursk?
Just a (slightly ghoulish) interest in the subject for a number of years.
A good source of information is the book by Malcolm Dando “A new form of warfare:the rise of non-lethal weapons”.
Though for a lot of poor souls “non-lethal” seems to be a relative term.
Also try http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll?type=fm
(Sorry, don’t know how to post a link).
This is a list of pdf field manuals available for download.
Try fm3-3 to 3-7
