From P. G. URBEN
Almost impossible to kill yourself accidentally with nitrogen? Technologists
have learnt, from bitter experience, that no gas causes more accidental
fatalities.
It is only necessary to add another 10 per cent of nitrogen to air to
make the mix unable to support human life. However, it produces no physiological
response whatsoever, so the victim continues happily breathing, at the normal
rate (and spraying more into the paper bag from which he hopes to inhale
a kick) until he drops, with his brain already damaged from oxygen lack.
Nitrogen is noncombustible, nonexplosive, nontoxic, odourless and absolutely
deadly, because it gives no kick or other response but just gets on with
the job of asphyxiation (which is the name with which we glorify death from
nitrogen).
Of the gases we daily respire, carbon dioxide is the best propellant
and is already sometimes used. It too may freeze the throat, and it too
produces a physiological response which some may interpret as a thrill.
But that response includes faster and deeper breathing, so asphyxiation
is not so likely as with nitrogen.
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P. G. Urben Kenilworth, Warwickshire
