I heard from an expert that self asphyxiation kills a lot of people by accident because it is unexpectedly fast. They get no warning of imminent blackout, just wide awake one instant and unconscious and strangling the next.
And if they are alone, they are dead.
Having her fingers in the noose indicates that she thought that if it hurt too much or something, she could pull the noose off her neck. But it doesn’t work that way.
The body can be very unpredictable that way as well. Sometimes boys play the “knockout game”, where one of them does heavy breathing, then takes a big gulp of air and hugs his chest or one of his friends hugs him tightly.
And annually some boys die of this. Their body is fooled into shutting down their respiration, and their friends just think they are passed out, not realizing that they are suffocating.
The closest I have ever come to complete panic was waking from a dream.
I dreamed I was in a peanut field I had walked through many times as a child. The old kind where they stacked the peanuts and hay on a pole to make what appeared to be a haystack.
Well the peanut pickers had already picked the peanuts and bailed the peanut hay but the scraps left on the ground had been set on fire. Suddenly I realized the smoke was much thicker than I had thought and I could not breathe.
I awoke not breathing and very close to passing out. I totally panicked and began to suck in air at the greatest amount I possibly could. It took maybe 2 or 3 minutes before I caught my breath. In fact I was just about to hit the 911 button when I recovered.
It has never happened again thank goodness but now nothing frightens me more than being short of breath.