The Vancouver Sun reported on 8 Dec 07 that the helium in an ‘exit bag’ is new choice for assisted suicide for patients who are dying or suffering from an end-stage incurable illness.
Criminologist Russel Ogden said that at least 19 people
in B.C. have committed suicide by using helium since 1999, according to
statistics compiled for him by the Coroner’s Service of B.C.
Ogden acknowledged that he has no way of knowing whether these people
committed suicide because they had a terminal or progressively
debilitating illness — or because they were mentally ill.
But the figures, Ogden said, reflect a trend in the underground
right-to-die community — which he calls the “death counterculture” –
toward asphyxiation with helium for people ravaged by incurable suffering.
“What these B.C. statistics indicate is that a new method for suicide
has entered the public consciousness.”
Ogden said the technique of asphyxiation by helium inhalation first
gained public exposure in the assisted-suicide community with the
release in 2002 of the third edition of ‘Final Exit,‘ the landmark book
written by Hemlock Society founder Derek Humphry, a primer on suicide
and assisted suicide.
Information about the helium option has since been disseminated through
the Internet, including YouTube, and various handbooks, he added.
The helium method basically involves a person placing an “exit bag” over
his head with the helium entering the bag through a tube.
Helium is seen as a swift, highly lethal and painless way to die without
involving physicians or drugs. Helium is also nearly undetectable in
toxicological probes, which is important for people assisting a suicide
because of the potential of criminal charges.
Kwantlen criminologist Ogden said the 19 deaths recorded by the
Coroner’s Service under-represent the number of deaths in B.C. involving
helium.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Ogden, who has researched
the assisted-death movement for many years.
Ogden said the coroner’s service figures only involve cases where
equipment related to the use of helium was found.
The figures don’t include cases where death is assisted by activists who
remove all equipment or evidence so that the death is attributed to an
underlying illness or undetermined causes, Ogden said.
“I have data provided to me by activists in the right-to-die movement
between 1999 and 2002 on over 100 helium-related cases in North America
that were unreported in any forensic literature.”
Ogden said helium inhalation has become the preferred method among
activists in the Final Exit Network, an underground* U.S. group which
helps people kill themselves.
Final Exit is an offshoot* of the much larger Compassion and Choices,
which lobbies for political changes such as the Oregon model of
physician-assisted suicide for dying patients.
The best-known recent case of assisted suicide in B.C. involved Evelyn
Martens, a Vancouver Island grandmother and right-to-die activist, who
was charged with assisting two women to commit suicide.
One of the women, Monique Charest, a former nun, was found dead in her
Duncan apartment in 2002. Evidence at trial revealed that Charest used
the helium method to end her life.
Martens, who was an executive member of the Right to Die Network of
Canada and an agent for “Last Rights” Publications, was acquitted in 2004.
Ogden, who teaches a course at Kwantlen College called “Socio-legal Aspects of
Assisted Death,” said the emergence of new methods such as helium
inhalation don’t appear to spur any rise in the number of suicides.
“What we know is that when a new method is found, people simply change
their methods. The statistical incidence of suicide doesn’t increase.”
The emergence of helium as a method stems from Canadian and American
laws prohibiting assisted suicide — except in the state of Oregon.
“It certainly shows that necessity is the mother of all invention,” said
Ogden.
————————————————
ERGO-Store: http://www.finalexit.org/ergo-store
for ‘Final Exit’ paperback, DVD, or digital download.
Two Clarifications:
*The Final Exit Network is not an ‘underground’ organization as the above writer says. It is a fully registered group incorporated in Georgia IN 2003. It may not be known to everybody because it does its humanitarian work quietly and with respect. *Neither is it an offshoot of Compassion and Choices.
Visit its website at www.finalexitnetwork.org
HI ITS GIA AGAIN I WAS JUST HOPING YOUD POST MY COMMENT I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE MAY HANE MY SAME CONCERNS ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THERE IS A WAY TO ENSURE THE TANKS ARE FULL BEFORE YOU START THE PROCESS THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND DEVOTION TO THIS VERY WORTHY ENDEAVOR I STRONGLY BELIEVE BOTH HISTORY AND THE FUTURE WILL VINDICATE THE CAUSE OF DR ASSISTED SUICIDE
IS IT NESESSARRY FOR ME TO PURCHASE A HELIUM FITTING EXIT GAS CONTROL KIT FOR 74 DOLLARS
Answers:
#1 Two tanks are advisable because in rare instances a tank has been found to be empty. Perhaps it was not filled at the factory, or perhaps somebody tampered with it. The helium in one tank is more than ample for certain brain death.
#2 Whether a gas control kit is necessary is a matter of personal choice. Hundreds of exits have been made in the US without the gadget.
——–
Derek Humphry. 4 Sept 09
I just want to thank you for having this blog. I joined Final Exit after being diagnosed with severe chronic fatigue syndrome that has left me housebound. I’ve gone through my life savings trying various treatments that my insurance doesn’t cover. I am unable to work. Nothing helps. It is a very isolating illness and I have lost my will to live. There is no hope for me to get better. I wish I could have someone with me at the end. I have decided to die because this is not the life I want and I want to die before I get worse.
I’m afraid of dying but it is reassuring to hear that the helium method is painless and swift.
I didn’t mean to write so much. I’m just glad there is a place to get information so I can carry out my wishes.
Thank you.
Two questions. Is there a certain size helium tank? Where do I get the hood or can I use a plastic bag?
Thank you.
The details are in ‘Final Exit’ paperback or ebook
http://www.finalexit.org/ergo-store or in bookstores or libraries
I recently bought a copy of Final Exit, and I found it a very comforting and uplifting read – thank you very much for writing it. I’m sorry if this is a daft question, but if the terminally ill person has no one present to turn off the helium gas, and no means of regulating it, is there a risk that the flow of gas will eventually cause the bag to split and therefore thwart a successful deliverance?
Only 4-5 good gulps of pure helium are sufficient to achieve complete brain death, inside 4-5 minutes, so if the gas is still running it would begin to leak at the throat, but the patient would already be dead.
These details are in the DIY handbook ‘Final Exit’
This highly effective method of self-deliverance from terminal or hopeless illness requires careful planning and testing in advance. In the US, hundreds have used it.
The information and diagrams in Final Exit are most informative for the terminally ill. I was just concerned about the potential splitting bag issue leaving the job half done. If the bag is very secure at the neck, I thought there may be a risk of eventual rupture before the body is as dead as the brain. Perhaps it would be better if the terminally ill person used one of the balloon-filling tilt valves that requires finger pressure, then simply allowed their hand to slip once they had passed out, so the flow would then stop? It’s difficult to know what the best approach is for someone acting on their own.
In hundreds of cases, I’ve never heard of a bag splitting under pressure from these blow-up toy balloon kits.
Details are supplied in the DIY handbook ‘FinalExit’ and its Addendum.
http://www.finalexit.org/ergo-store
So as of todays date, are you still able to get the hood kit from glaad? And if so about how long does it take?
Yes. But how long it takes is not ERGO’s business.
Yes you can, but they’re busy.
I am planning a trip to Mexico City to search for Nembutal. I have reac to search in the suburbs of Mexico City. I have gone on line and there are many suburbs in Mexico City. I was wondering if anyone had any news on any particular suburbs where vets may sell Nembutal?
Please folks THINK!!!
(1) you can go to any of hundreds of companies (like Air Gas Inc)
that sell industrial gas containers for industry. They sell oxygen, helium, argon, carbon dioxide, and hundreds of other products used in the industrial world.
(2) I purchased a 24 inch high gas cylinder. Cost: 150 usd
(3) Same container with Helium cost 20 usd more
(4) Industrial flow meter (that attaches to tank) 120 usd
That plus a plastic bag is all u need.
The costs were very reasonable considering you have all industrial grade equipment and you need not toy around with the ridiculous so called party ballon kits. Those party ballon kits are an invitation to distasterous results. If you are going to do something in life
please do it to the best of your abilities and in this context it means
spending a bit more to get (forgive the pun) a bullet-proof setup.
Do research on the Internet and use your brain to distinguish
the intelligent responses from those that are (to me) obvious
unintelligent and downright ignorant pieces of advice, etc.
Good luck.
All balloon helium inert gas tanks are NOT mixed with air. If they were, they would be useless in industrial purposes, which is the main market. The most reliable is the big world supplier Worthington Industries. I can’t speak for the UK, but in America the party balloon helium tanks can be bought over Amazon.com, as well as party and toy stores.
Thank you for your response.
Does anyone from the UK know, whether industrial suppliers of helium will sell to the common man, or do they need some kind of license?
I would be very grateful for this information
thank you
A person can get the helium tanks from a toy store, a party store, and (at least in the USA) via Amazon.com
The large industrial tanks would take a lot of strength to move around.
My very ill friend successfully completed her final exit using the information from the Final Exit book about a week ago. The helium cannisters were the party pak ones purchased from a local store and she used a turkey roaster bag and the elastic element was an athletic headband. She did opt for the t-valve so that only 1 tube was taped inside the bag. Everything worked exactly as stated in the book. There was lots of planning. Two comments: 1. As she pulled the bag over her head she said it’s cold…. assume she was referring to the helium. Might be something for people to know about to be prepared. 2. The helium ran out about 15-20 mins after she started, but before she was dead, so those present ( but not assisting) had to trust that was normal, that she had inhaled enough breaths of pure helium, and that this was normal and not to panic Another little point of detail.
Otherwise I am so grateful she had this option as her pain had become unbearable. I am hoping laws change during my lifetime so end of life planning can be more inclusive of family and friends which helps eliminate uninformed fears about death.
Thank you again for your work.
When the method is properly carried out, with perfect equipment, nobody can live more than 4-5 minutes inside the hood (plastic bag). There must have been a leak in the Batista case above.
this was posted Wikipedia and i found it reassuring in terms of addressing my fear of the feeling of suffocation.
A suicide bag, also known as an exit bag, is a device consisting of a large, clear plastic bag with a drawstring used to commit suicide. It is simple to make at home or can be bought over the internet. It is usually used in conjunction with an inert gas like helium or nitrogen, which prevents the panic, sense of suffocation and struggling even when unconscious (the hypercapnic alarm response) caused by the deprivation of oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide. It also makes the method of death difficult to trace if the bag and gas canister are removed before the death is reported.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bag
Obviously the person still alive after 15/20 minutes was not carrying out the self-deliverance carefully.
Nonsense that a person could still be alive after 15/20 minutes if the self-deliverance via the helium hood method was being carried out properly, by the book. I speak with knowledge of hundreds of cases by my colleagues throughout the right-to-die movement. It is best not to pay attention to wild, anonymous, individual claims on the internet; some are deliberate mis-information by opponents of euthanasia.
There is no ‘gasping’ or ’suffocating’ if a competent, terminally or hopelessly ill adult is carrying out self-deliverance carefully in the proper method. Coma then death comes so fast there is no going back and there are no sensations of choking; it is brain death. Beware of wild stories put on the internet by strange individuals who were just playing at dying or trying to make trouble.
None of the sensations mentioned below.
I have asked http://www.balloontime.com
How long the lifetime of a Heliumcylinder is.
I asked “If I do not open the tank and keep it from rusting,
how long will the helium all stay inside?”
This is the reaction I got today:
“Good afternoon,
Balloon Time has no “best-before-use” date. I personally have kept the cylinders in my home for use for over a year with no problem but that is my person experience.
Regards,
Katrina Ann Knee Pimenta
Worthington Cylinders
Customer Service Manager
Regional Balloon Time sales Manager
Phone: +351-256420444
Fax: +351-256420459
cell: +351-917545576
Rua da Granja 530
Vale de Cambra 3731-901
Portugal
Visit our site!
http://www.balloontime.com
http://www.worthingtoncylinders.com
After that I asked further.
This is what she said then:
“We do not have evidence for or against the helium staying inside the cylinder for a specific amount of time. Sorry I am not able to give you specific information on this.
Best regards,
Katrina Ann Knee Pimenta
Worthington Cylinders”
But mostly her words:
“Balloon Time has no “best-before-use” date.”
are very interesting to me.