That doesn't happen. The gasping reflex is triggered by excess CO2 build-up in the lungs, which never occurs with this method. CO2 gets exhaled normally, but what you inhale has no oxygen. You just quietly pass out, and in about ten minutes you're gone.
As far a I'm concerned, I want one. I'm not ready yet, but at 77 I'm becoming aware of the endless horror of being warehoused in a "care facility", as is already happening to some of my contemporaries. I spent a week last year in one recovering from surgery, and that was more than enough.
“The gasping reflex is triggered by excess CO2 build-up in the lungs,”
Close, but it’s actually buildup of CO2 in the bloodstream. It lowers the pH, from the creation of carbonic acid in it.
The decrease in pH causes the discomfort and panic effect in people.
Oxygen starvation is not sensed much at all. So people can suffocate (removal of adequate Oxygen) in both Nitrogen and CO2 (and anything other than good ole O2). But the pH effect causes autonomic reaction from CO2 buildup.
FRiend, I completely understand. My wife worked as a nurse’s aide in her younger days and my mother-in-law was a lifelong RN, they both have told me horror stories of how things work in a lot of those ‘care’ facilities.
I am 77, also. I assure you that growing old is not for sissies. Buck up, FRiend, you’re displaying courage by continuing the struggle even as your body deteriorates.