Continuing our series on Cyanide poisoning with…
Today’s Confusing Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
As cyanide interferes with cellular respiration, the result is deep cellular confusion, a sensation not so much of choking as of oxygen starvation, triggering a prolonged but ineffectual panic response, which many observers of asphyxiations find the most difficult thing to watch. The lungs, responding autonomically to the adrenaline that comes with panic, begin to hyperventilate, causing more cyanide to be inhaled. The blood, deprived of the oxygen needed to produce hemoglobin, loses its clotting ability and flows poisonously into tissue, particularly of the lungs, brain, and the stomach’s mucous membranes, which congest and redden, causing extreme burning and nausea. Rushes of blood to the brain, bringing increasing amounts of cyanide, cause massive disorientation. Cyanide, like many poisons, is a powerful hallucinogen. The lungs begin to hemorrhage and the throat and jaw constrict with the involuntary pressure that often precedes vomiting – a natural defense inhibited in the chamber by the increasing muscular dysfunction caused by deoxygenation. Instead, the neck area becomes both numb and tingly as the mouth fills with a foaming saliva, probably tasting heavily of acid and almonds.
Culled from: The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Culture of Death Row
Stay tuned for two more excruciating parts of the Death By Cyanide series!