THE RUDOLF REPORT

GERMAR RUDOLF · THE RUDOLF REPORTTime until respiratoryarrest[min]manner. Also, small amounts of air would have seeped into the interiorthrough the ventilation shafts.Due to the extremely high capability of the lungs to absorb HCN,the human lung acts like a perfect filter which absorbs all hydrogencyanide out of the air. Taking the experiences of US execution ‘gaschamber’ as a base, death occurs after some 10 minutes at the earliestin case of an application of ca. 4 g HCN per m 3 . In assuming a totalinhaled volume of ca. 210 l, this corresponds to an incorporatedamount of HCN of ca. 800 mg, which is a tenfold overdose of the lethaldose (80 mg/person). In the following, it is assumed that an executionlasting several hours, no overdoses of HCN are incorporated. Usingthese benchmarkfigures, a relation be-10tween incorporatedoverdose and executiontime results as shownin Graph 11.The HCN contentin the air of a roomdecreases similarly bybreathing as by ventilation(exponential behavior,see chapter7.3.2.2.2.). If the victimshave inhaled theentire room volume214Table 9: Reduction of O 2 contentin air-tight morgue 1 as a function of timeReduction ofInhaled volumein free volumes Oof 1,000 victims[m³]2of the room content (30%per Inhalation)Reduction ofO 2content (20%per inhalation)5 210 0.5 17.9 18.910 420 1 15 16.820 840 2 10.5 13.430 1,260 3 7.4 10.845 1,890 4.5 4.2 (lethal) 7.860 2,520 6 5.5 (lethal)120 5,040 12overdose864200 50 100time until resporatory arrest [min]Graph 11: Incorporated amount of HCN asfunction of time until respiratory arrest inoverdoses of lethal dose (ca. 80 mg).