The DeBreather is a device that uses recirculated air to produce a low oxygen, low carbon dioxide environment to provide the user with a hypoxic peaceful death.
The idea of using a closed gas source to bring about hypoxic death was conceived by John Hofsess, and Gordon Smith and initially discussed with Philip Nitschke at the first NuTech gathering in Victoria, BC in 1998.
In the years that followed, the Smith-Hofsess DeBreather was used by over ten people to end their lives. However, there were problems associated with maintaining a good air-seal between the user and the apparatus. This led to the abandonment of the DeBreather in 2002. A record of these early events was published in the peer-reviewed journal,Death Studies in 2010 by Canadian researcher, Russell Ogden. The article was titled:‘The debreather: A report on euthanasia and suicide assistance using adapted scuba technology’ and is available online at: http://bit.ly/2TjDhlO
In 2017, US inventor, Richard Avocet, announced that he had solved the former problem associated with the air-seal. This new model ‘R2D ReBreather’ was unveiled at the 2017 NuTech conference in Toronto, where it was acknowledged for its development.
As R2D units began to be sold around the world, Exit expected that we would soon receive eyewitness reports of the ‘success- ful’ use of this new Debreather. However, this did not occur.