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The Best Way To Die

For centuries people have tried to solve the mystery surrounding death. What’s it like? Where do you go? Do you really see a light at the end of the tunnel? There have been books, movies and plays on death, but the true mystery of passing from this life to the next can only be unraveled in the final seconds before the end. \

Well, thanks to some keen scientific advances and recounts of final moments from those who have lived through near-death experiences, scientists have been able to describe what it feels like to die.

Death comes in many forms, but it’s usually a lack of oxygen to the brain that delivers the coup de grace. When a person’s head is deprived of oxygen there’s a cessation of electrical activity in the brain — the modern definition of death. Science says you have about 10 seconds after oxygen stops coming to your brain before you pass out.

In reporting my latest piece for the “Watercooler Diaries,” I uncovered some of the grisly details surrounding five high-profile ways to die. As it turns out, losing your head may not be as painful as it sounds. Read on to see what I mean, but beware this stuff gets kind of creepy.

Drowning. There’s a certain dark romance to it. Many literary heroines — think Ophelia — have met their end slipping beneath the dark waves with layers of petticoats floating around their heads. But this demise is neither pretty nor painless, although it can be quick.

Just how fast depends on swimming ability and water temperature. However, two-thirds of drowning victims are good swimmers, which suggests that people can get into trouble quickly. First comes the “surface struggle.” The victims gasp for air then hold their breath as they bob beneath. Studies with New York lifeguards have found that this stage lasts just 20 to 60 seconds. Once they submerge, they hold their breath for as long as possible — about 30 to 90 seconds. After that, they inhale some water, splutter, cough and inhale more water. The water blocks the delicate gas exchange that goes on the lungs and also triggers the airway to seal shut. Then comes a tearing and burning sensation in the chest as water travels into the airway and finally the victim slips into a feeling of calmness and tranquility, basically the beginnings of loss of consciousness from oxygen deprivation. This eventually causes the heart to stop and brain death.

Bleeding to death. We’ve all seen it in the movies: soldiers gushing from a gunshot wound, a blood-drenched woman slipping away after a car crash. This kind of death can take minutes or hours depending on how bad the wound is. Called exsanguinations, bleeding to death has a range of feelings, according to survivor reports, which range from fear to relative calm. The average adult has 5 liters of blood. Anyone losing 1.5 liters feels weak, thirsty, anxious and breaths really fast. By 2 liters, they get dizzy, confused and eventually go unconscious.

Decapitation. It seems a bit gruesome, but it can actually be one of the quickest and least painful ways to die — as long as the executioner is skilled, the blade is sharp and the condemned sits still. The guillotine, adopted by the French government in 1792, was seen as a more humane way to die. But get this, scientists think that consciousness continues after the spinal chord is severed. One study on rats found that it takes about 7 seconds for the brain to consume the oxygen from the blood left in the head. Some macabre reports from post-revolutionary France cite movements of the eyes and mouth 15 to 30 seconds after the blade came down.

Death by fire. Long the fate of witches and heretics, this demise is truly torture. Hot smoke and flames singe eyebrows and hair and burn the throat and airways, leaving you gasping for breath. Meanwhile, the burns inflict immediate and intense pain by stimulating pain nerves in the skin. As the intensity increases some feeling is lost but not much. Most people in fires don’t actually die from burns. They die from inhaling toxic gases and a suffocating lack of oxygen.

Lethal injection. This end was designed in Oklahoma in 1977 as a humane alternative to the electric chair, but is it really painless? It’s a series of three drug injections. First comes the anaesthetic thiopental to speed away any feelings of pain, followed by a paralytic agent called pancuronium to stop breathing. And finally, potassium chloride in injected. This stops the heart almost instantly. Each drug is given in a lethal dose to ensure a speedy death. However, eyewitnesses have reported inmates convulsing, heaving and attempting to sit up during the procedure suggesting this drug cocktail is not always completely effective. Dr. Leonidas Koniaris at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine suggests that awareness is a real possibility in a large number of executions. He says inmates could feel suffocation from paralyzed lungs and the searing, burning pain of a potassium chloride injection, but because of the paralytic a witness may never see the outward signs of pain.

Tune into the “Watercooler Diaries” on KBTVonline Tuesday for our piece, “How it Feels to Die.”

posted by rjoyner @ 7:46 AM