"David Kazdan" wrote in message
m...

But breath helium in the absence of oxygen and, just like if you breath
nitrogen in similar circumstances, you will become unconscious, have an
anoxic seizure, and die. It's the same mechanism as used by the suicide
who surrounds himself with non-burning natural gas in an oven.

FWIW...

That's real hard to do nowdays.

Back when sticking your head in the oven was a popular movie cliche, the gas
distributed in most big cities was producer gas - a byproduct of of the
process used to make coke out of coal - essentially partial combustion with
inadequate air. The heating value of producer gas was primarily due to the
carbon monoxide content (it also contained a lot of N2 and CO2 as you would
expect). The CO is what made sticking your head in the oven work so well.
However, since the 1950's and the development of the cross country
pipelines, producer gas has been replace with natural gas (primarily methane
with a little mercaptan added to make it smell) which is just not the same
thing. Also, the oven burners are designed to mix air with the natural gas
so it's hard to adequately displace the oxygen in the air to commit suicide
by simply sticking your head in the open door.

--
Geoff
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