Today’s Chemically Entombed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Lethal injection is an execution method performed by injecting the convict with three different drugs in succession. The first drug is either sodium thiopental or sodium pentothal, which slackens the muscles, depresses the central nervous system, and induces something resembling sleep; then mancuronium bromide or Pavulon (artificial drugs similar to curare, used by Amerindians to poison arrow tips) is administrered, to attack the lungs; and finally, potassium chloride, an electrolyte that, in large doses, reverses the polarity of the heart muscles, causing failure. All three are used in common medical practice – the sodium compounds are still used in dental anesthesia; curare, greatly diluted, of course, is a homeopathic remedy for anxiety; potassium chloride is prescribed for heart fibrillation. This quasi-medicinality enables the common opinion that lethal injections are like “putting people to sleep,” a homespun wisdom first offered in 1973 by then California governor Ronald Reagan, who cited his years as “a farmer and horse raiser” in making the assertion.
Consciousness is a relative thing, however, particularly when large amounts of strong drugs are involved. Thiopental and pentothal certainly make the condemned appear to lose consciousness, but there is no way of measuring this: all three parts of the lethal cocktail are of a sufficient dose to cause death by themselves. The sodium compounds, however, may only render the condemned incapable of expressing pain and panic that a poison like Pavulon would cause anyone even remotely conscious, or the subsequent terror when the heart’s rhythm is suddenly altered. If so, death by lethal injection may not be the euthanasia of common perception but a chemical entombment, lasting anywhere from two to ten minutes.
Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Culture of Death Row
I think I want to start a band called Chemical Entombment. It hasn’t been taken yet, has it?
Facts
I’ve been in the wheezy grip of bronchitis for the past week, so please excuse the lack of activity on the page. I am hopeful that my immune system is finally getting the upper hand in the battle and I can return to the daily facts, starting with…
Today’s Informational Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
There are currently estimated to be around 120 corpses in various locations on Mt. Everest.
Culled from: Mount Everest History & Facts
This is, of course, the only reason why I would ever entertain a trip to the summit. In fact, I wouldn’t even go to the summit. I’d say, “It’s okay, you guys go on without me, I’m just gonna dig around down here…”
Here’s an excellent blog with a number of photographs of the corpses:
Abandoned On Everest
I read, much to my alarm, that Sherpas were planning on gathering some of the corpses in 2010, including some of the most famous ones (Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, who died during the 1996 disaster documented in the mesmerizing book Into Thin Air). What a devastating blow to morbidity! Really, is nothing sacred? Not even the right to walk past corpses on your way to the summit of Mt. Everest?
Facts
Whaddaya know? The Religious Wacko *did* crucify himself. Well, you gotta admire the strength of his convictions, if absolutely nothing else!
Police Say South Korean Crucified Himself With Drill, String, Nails
Facts
Today’s Human Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
North Carolina closed its gas chamber after the 1994 asphyxiation of David Lawson, who went to his death screaming, “I’m human!!! I’m human!!!!”
Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Culture of Death Row
Facts
Today’s Severe Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
A man has killed and beheaded a British woman in a supermarket on the Spanish island of Tenerife. The suspect, a 28-year-old unemployed Bulgarian man, attacked the unnamed 60-year-old woman with a knife and then fled into the street with the severed head in his hands. Police have identified the alleged killer as Deyan Valentinov D., but have not released a surname. Colin Kirby, a reporter for Tenerife Magazine, explained what he had seen as he walked past the shop, in Los Cristianos, Arona, at around 10:30 a.m. on Friday, May 13, 2011. He said he had spoken to an English couple who were in the shop at around 10:30 a.m. when the incident happened. “They said this guy just walked in, pulled a big knife and started stabbing at her. I didn’t see the attack but I saw the guy. I was walking past the commercial centre and I saw a small group of people outside. There was a guy from the medical centre going down the ramp and I thought perhaps someone had fainted. I heard people shouting and screaming and making a commotion. A Hispanic looking guy, very scruffy, was walking behind me muttering to himself, carrying what I thought was a joke head by the hair, with blood. It made me think of Clash of The Titans, gorgons. I thought … it's a joke'. The man was in his late 20s … He was a bit dishevelled, unwashed, he was wearing a jumper and trousers, when everyone else is wearing shorts. Even at 10.30 in the morning, it’s boiling. Security guards rushed from the shop where he’d been, chased him across the road and by this time he was pinned to the floor. By this time he was empty-handed and was on the other side of the road. The security and the police had to hold people off – they were queueing up – they were trying basically to kick the hell out of the guy.”
A witness told the radio broadcaster Cadena Ser that he saw the man drop the head on the pavement after coming out of the shop. “I parked my car and saw a man running out with something bloody in his hands and a security guard chasing him. He threw it to the ground. It almost hit me. What he had been carrying was a woman’s head.” Araceli Perez, 33, who works for Ocean Properties, said the victim was British but of Chinese ancestry. “[The killer] was running away with her head in his hands,” she said. Tenerife media were saying the killer had previous convictions for violence, she added. The Foreign Office said that not all the woman’s family had been informed and they could not comment other than to confirm that she had died. “We are aware that a British national has died in Tenerife,” it said. José Alberto González, the mayor, said the attack did not appear to be premeditated and had been recorded on the supermarket’s security cameras. A regional interior ministry delegate, Dominica Fernández, said the suspect was believed to have entered the shop and stolen a knife, which he then used to behead the woman. The attack appeared to be random. Police are investigating to see if the victim and the killer knew one another.
Culled from: Guardian
Generously submitted by: Katchaya
Facts
Today’s Grievously Offensive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
When gas chamber executions began to be used again in the United States after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on executions in 1976, the apparent violence of asphyxiations grievously offended witnesses in state after state, from the 1983 execution of Jimmy Lee Gray in Mississippi to the gassing of Donald Eugene Harding on April 11, 1992, Arizona’s first execution in 30 years. A Tucson television reporter sobbed uncontrollably during Harding’s ten-minute execution; two other reporters “were rendered walking ‘vegetables’ for days”; the attorney general vomited halfway through; a prison staff member who ran the execution likened it to watching a man suffer a series of heart attacks; and the prison’s pro-penalty warden said he’d resign if the state told him to run another asphyxiation. But Harding’s death was probably no different from those suffered in Arizona’s chamber since it was installed as “a humane measure” in 1933, replacing a gallows that had decapitated a condemned woman. The difference was really one of perception, but over time it was big enough to put an end to these old methods.
Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Culture of Death Row
Facts
Today’s Exhumed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The Wilkinson Head - allegedly Oliver Cromwell.
Oliver Cromwell, the straight-laced Puritan who usurped the English throne, wasn’t exactly a wild man. His head, however, was sometimes the life of the party. Cromwell died in 1658, but two years later, the reinstated English monarchy exhumed, tried, and hanged his body, then dumped it in an unmarked grave. In addition, as a warning to would-be killers, his head was placed on a pike in Westminster Hall, where it remained for 20 years. After a subsequent sting in a small museum, it was sold in 1814 to a man named Josiah Henry Wilkinson (perhaps looking to parade it around as an exceptionally gruesome ice-breaker at parties). Such was the ironic afterlife of the Puritan until 1960, when his head was finally laid to rest in a chapel in Cambridge.
Culled from: Neatorama
Generously submitted by: Reno Dave
Facts
Mrs. Louisa Adelade Walters – “The first case of hip joint amputation in the United States” from the Otis Archives Flickr Page (a page of favorite photos of employees of the National Museum of Health and Medicine). They have a great blog too:
A Repository For Bottled Monsters.
Thanks to Twisted Princess for sending me the photo link.
Ghastly!
Today’s Sizzling Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The violent spectacle of electrocution surprised and baffled the new executioners after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on executions in 1976. When Robert Wayne Williams was put to death in Angola’s chair in 1983, Louisiana’s first execution in nineteen years, wardens were amazed that the chair literally cooked Williams’s scalp and legs, which smoked and sizzled for several minutes. Twenty-four hours later, the corpse reeked so strongly that mourners found it difficult to remain in the funeral parlor where Williams was laid out. Angola’s warden, Ross Maggio, had to call sources ourside the prison to learn if this was the way it was supposed to happen.
Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Culture of Death Row
Facts
