“Gun Death” Helium

An interesting suicide method:

A 44-year-old woman, whose body was found in a heavily wooded area in a Pennsylvania state park, was ruled to have committed suicide by inhaling helium gas, police said.

When the anti-rights people cite “Gun Death” they often include suicide, claiming that if guns weren’t available the suicide wouldn’t happen.

Makes even less sense when you see this statistic:

Helium inhalation has become an increasingly popular method of suicide in recent years. According to a recent study, reported helium-related deaths spiked from two in 2010 to 42 in 2011.

Between 1993 and 2007 only 18 people were recorded as having died from the gas.

Helium is often used to eliminate the pain and panic that comes with asphyxiation.

I suspect that the low rate of “Helium Death” was simply because people were ignorant of how it could be used. With more knowledge you have more people using that method.

Hey, but guns cause death, right?

h/t Bob

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2 Responses to “Gun Death” Helium

  1. George says:

    When I talk about gun deaths, I’ll say “X people were killed last year with firearms. Y of those were suicides. So Z people were killed who didn’t want to die.”

  2. fast richard says:

    Any gas not containing oxygen would work for that kind of suicide. Pure Nitrogen or Argon are also readily available. The gas just flushes the CO2 so the person doesn’t feel the need to breath. Hypoxia is a pretty painless way to go.

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