Intentional suffocation by inhaling nitrous, is it possible?

[Renald]

Is it possible to suffocate yourself and die only by breathing nitrous oxide (or any inert gas) from a balloon (I am not speaking about restricting the air after you lose consciousness)? I noticed one interesting fact, when I am sober, I cant hold my breath for more than 20-30 seconds after fully exhaled, the suffocation forces me to inhale. This time can be increased about twice for me if I hyperventilate before. But even without hyperventilation, when I am inhaling nitrous, I can hold my breath after exhaled for about a minute (2-3 times longer comparing to "sober"), and even then I feel no urge to inhale. I put SpO2 meter on my finger doing these experiments and became scared when my SpO2 felt to sub 80 levels, and I had feelings, not typical to nitrous high, but to hypoxia. This forced me to think what happened if I held my breath for longer time? Surely, I would lose consciousness, but what mechanism forced my organism to begin breathing again? In other words, maybe I can consciously suffocate myself to the death even without the air restriction?
The issue is interesting from a theoretical standpoint, at this moment I am too scared to make a "full experiment" with blanking out and having no medical equipment and personnel, who would be able to intervene if something wrong happened.
Maybe anybody can tell me from his own experience? I read lots of people had lost consciousness during nitrous oxide inhalation ...

 

[szuko000]

Generally speaking once someone falls unconscious they start breathing by nature of it being involuntarily. So the short answer is no as long as there is breathable oxygen you will be fine. The long answer is when most people fall unconscious due to drugs it is usually a drug that causes respiratory depression and in a prolonged event it is easy to have it fall below a survivable rate or choke on vomit. Or in the case of IV heroin your breathing stops as a result of respiratory depression and they make gargling noises as it passes due to restricted breathing.

Given how involuntary it is you can not have control over your muscles when you are not able to control them... so you start breathing again. Also I think this response is what causes people to drown and is how their lungs get full of water. It should be noted i dont have sources for this so i dont actually know though, i just think.

 

[belligerent drunk]

szuko is right, after losing consciousness breathing becomes involuntary, so you will resume breathing after passing out. You may suffer some damage from acute hypoxia, but you most likely won't die.

 

[My3sons]

You must have a lot of time on your hands.