The Smith-Hofsess DeBreather as demonstrated in BC, Canada 1998
At the NuTech meeting in Seattle the following year, a volunteer fitted the face mask and demonstrated that the oxygen level in the closed system could be readily reduced to < 10% with a few minutes of regular breathing. In the two years that followed, the Smith-Hofsess DeBreather was used by over ten people to peace- fully end their lives. A record of these events was published in 2010 by Canadian researcher, Russell Ogden.
‘The debreather: A report on euthanasia and suicide assistance us- ing adapted scuba technology’ - See: http://bit.ly/2TjDhlO
Of the 10 cases described, there eight ‘successful’ deaths and one failure. The mean time to death was 25 minutes. In most cases, sleeping medication was taken prior to use. In five of the reported cases, the DeBreather was applied by the assistant after the per- son was asleep. In his paper on the DeBreather, Ogden draws attention to difficulties in using the equipment, in particular, the problem maintaining a good air seal between the facemask and the face.
