Thats the thing about hypoxia, you don’t struggle and your body doesn’t react to reduced or non existent oxygen, its only when co2 starts to build up that people gasp and struggle to breathe. Watch the video in my edit above and tell me at what point Destin looked like he was in pain. But he absolutely was at risk of dying and quite rapidly in a scenario they were not trying knock him unconscious.

Our bodies simply do not react to nitrogen because 79% of our atmosphere is nitrogen. Our body expects that every gulp of air we breathe will be mostly nitrogen. Normally the co2 we exhale is heavier and falls towards our feet, and why sleeping with a blanket over your head can feel like you’re suffocating.

The execution itself was flawed by not ensuring the victims head was elevated above the rest of his body and there was no method implemented to extract or remove the co2 he was exhaling. If he was in a proper pod or sealed chamber sitting up right with oxygen being removed as in the video, he would have lost consciousness in minutes to potentially seconds depending how quickly they could lower the o2 concentrations. Using a mask and having him lay on his back gave the co2 no where to go, ontop of him holding his breath which only amplified how his body reacted to rising co2 levels and sent him into panic.