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Part III, other methods

Hanging
1. asphyxiation (dangle on end of rope for 10 minutes)
Time: 5 to 10 minutes
Available: Rope, solid support 10 foot above ground
Certainty: Fairly certain (discovery, rope/support snapping)
Notes: Brain damage likely if rescued. Very painful depending on rope. Most common effective form of suicide in UK. See "Asphyxiation".

2. breaking neck
Time: Should be instant if it does break. See previous if not
Available: Rope, solid support, 10 foot space below, several above
Certainty: Very certain if the rope/support doesn't break
Notes: Minimal danger of discovery (depends on location). Painless if you drop far enough (8 foot is optimum). Make sure that the rope is tied securely to something STRONG!! It has to support your weight MULTIPLIED by the deccelleration. Use a hangman's knot (with the knot at the back of your neck). It doesn't always work this well though, you might get a bust jaw / lacerations etc and then asphyxiate.

Calle: I got this table of appropriate falling heights from a.s.h. long-time regular MegaZone (megazone@wpi.wpi.edu), who got it from a friend of his named Mark.

	     Hanging Drop Heights...

	Culprits Weight			Drop
	14   stone (196 lbs)		8ft 0in
	13.5 stone (189 lbs)		8ft 2in
	13   stone (182 lbs)		8ft 4in
	12.5 stone (175 lbs)		8ft 6in
	12   stone (168 lbs)		8ft 8in
	11.5 stone (161 lbs)		8ft 10in
	11   stone (154 lbs)		9ft 0in
	10.5 stone (147 lbs)		9ft 2in
	10   stone (140 lbs)		9ft 4in
	9.5  stone (133 lbs)		9ft 6in
	9    stone (126 lbs)		9ft 8in
	8.5  stone (119 lbs)		9ft 10in
	8    stone (112 lbs)		10ft 0in
Source: Charles Duff, Handbook of Hanging (Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint 1929)

Notes: This is for person of average build with no unusual physical problems. The Author (James "Hangman" Barry) noted that when executing "persons who had attempted suicide by cutting their throats...to prevent reoping the wounds I have reduced the drop by nearly half."

Jumping off buildings
Time: Instantanious if you are lucky, minutes/hours otherwise
Available: You need ten stories or higher, and access to the top floor windows/roof. Bring a bolt cutter to get onto the roof
Certainty: 90% for 6 stories, increasing after that
Notes: Difficult to overcome fear of heights, many people can't do it. Totally painless if high enough, but very frightening. Easily discovered if seen on/near roof/windows. Access fairly easy in a city, otherwise difficult. Risk of spending the rest of your life in a wheelchair. Ever tried killing yourself if you are paralysed from the neck down? Email conversations suggest 10+ stories works ALMOST all of the time. Try to land on concrete. Quote - "9 out of 10 people who fall 6 stories will die". Note that it may take a while for many of those 90% to die.

Slitting wrists or other (often not effective)
Time: Minutes if major artery cut, eternity otherwise.
Available: You really need a razor sharp knife. Razors are pretty tricky to hold when they are covered with blood.
Certainty: possible if you cut an artery, improbable otherwise
Notes: Painful at first. Danger of discovery. This is a very common suicide 'gesture' and hardly ever results in anything other than a scar. A lot of will power required to cut deeply into groin or carotid arteries, which are the only ones likely to kill you. Don't bother with this method. Cutting your throat is difficult due to the fact that the carotid arteries are protected by your windpipe (feel where your arteries are with your fingertips, & slice from the side). I've seen photos of people who have used this method - the depth of the cut required is amazing. If you want to cut your wrists, cut along the blue line (vein) on the underside of your wrist, but cut deeply so that the artery underneath is exposed. Cut this lengthways with a razor or similar. The traditional hot bath does help, since it keeps the blood flowing quickly, slows down clotting, and is nice to lie back and relax in. Position yourself so that your wrists don't fall inwards against your body, blocking off blood flow.

Calle: A posting to A.S.H. suggests using the kind of equipment they use when you give blood to a blood bank, i.e., a needle in a blood vessel and a piece of tubing. It sounds like it would remove several of the disadvantages of the ordinary slitting-wrists method.

Bullet
Time: Microseconds unless you are unlucky (mins/hours)
Available: Difficult in UK, easier in USA (get a shotgun)
Certainty: Certain
Notes: Painless if worked, otherwise painful & brain damage. Danger of discovery of weapon or ammunition. Not at all common in UK, more common in USA where guns available. Brain damage & other effects if you survive. Death either instantaneous, or prolonged. Lots of will power needed to fire gun ('hesitation marks' are bullets/pellets embedded in the wall, when you jerk the gun as you fire). Bullet can miss vital parts in skull, deflect off skull. If you have a choice, use a shotgun rather than a rifle of a pistol, since it is so much more effective. ("shotgun" entry later). Ammunition to use is: .458 Winchester Magnum, or soft-point slugs with .44 Magnum. Also you could use a sabot round, which is a plastic wedge with a smaller thing in it. These rounds are rather overkill, the phrase "elephant gun" has been used about the .458 Winchester, but if you're going to go, do it with a bang. Note, people usually survive single .22 shots to the temples. The other problem with guns is that is is bloody messy. Your next of kin will really _enjoy_ cleaning up after you, washing the coagulated blood & brains out of corners etc...

Asphyxiation
Time: 5 mins to unconciousness, 10+ mins to brain death
Available: Anywhere there's a rope and something solid to tie it to
Certainty: Certain, if you don't get "rescued"
Notes: Panic reaction is very likely (unless inert gasses used). One of the most effective and most used methods of suicide. Probable brain damage if you are "rescued". NOTE, this can only really be done in two ways: firstly, when you are unconsious (eg, sleeping pills), or secondly, by hanging. Combining with pure inert gasses is a very good suggestion. See "Nitrogen" in the poisons section

Air in veins (basically just a myth)
Time: Couple of minutes claimed
Available: Plenty of air about... Need a hypodermic & syringe
Certainty: only 1 known case.. patient may already have been dead
Notes: The only case I know about, it killed with 40cc of air. Smaller amounts are harmless. The case was the death of Abbie Borroto, who died in 1950 from a 40cc injection in New Hampshire. She died in minutes. This was the 1949 Dr H Sander case. He was found not guilty to murder on the grounds that the patient may already have been dead when he gave the injection. (A doctor and a nurse could find no pulse earlier the same day). The following 2 quotes are from [1]: Prof. Y Kenis says: "... not a suitable method, nor a gentle death... extremely difficult to utilize as a method of suicide. .. possibly with very serious consequences, such as paralysis or permanent brain damage. .. this is only an impression, and I have no real scientific information on the subject." Dr Pieter V Admiraal .. describes the theoretical air bubble method of suicide as impossible, disagreeable and cruel. "To kill somebody with air you would have to inject at least 100 -> 200 millilitres as quickly as possible in a vein as big as possible close to the heart. You would have to fill the whole heart with air at once. The heart would probably beat on for several minutes, perhaps 5 -> 15 minutes, and during the first minutes the person may be conscious."

Decapitation
Time: Couple of seconds before conciousness fades
Available: Happen to have a train line nearby? Or a guillotine perhaps?
Certainty: Very certain, unless you pull away just before
Notes: See "jumping in front of trains". May be difficult to stop pulling your head out of the way - OD on sleeping tablets first

Calle: A news notice from California posted to alt.suicide.holiday tells the story of a man who comitted suicide nearly cut his own head off with a chainsaw. Sounds like a grisly way to do it.

Disembowelment (aka seppuku/hara kiri)
Time: Minutes
Available: Got a nice razor-sharp sword?
Certainty: Fairly certain, assuming that you managed to gut yourself properly before passing out with the agony
Notes: Painful, even the macho Samurai used a 'second' to decapitate them at the appropriate point, so don't expect to do much more than give yourself peritonitis. Trendy for insane martial arts fanatics and gay Japanese poets called Mishima.

Drowning
Time: Minutes (5 mins to die of drowning, 20 to die of hypothermia)
Available: Anywhere there's deep, (cold) water in a remote spot
Certainty: Good, just make sure you sink & can't swim
Notes: Put stones in your pockets, tie your legs & hands together, and hop into the lake.. bit of a shock to the fisherman who finds your rotting corpse stuck in his brand new net. Also see entry for "hypothermia/freezing". However, remember that you can be revived from cold water drowning after several hours, because the cold slows down terminal brain damage. Warmer water doesn't have the advantage of hypothermia, but is more effective in making sure you *stay* dead.

Electrocution
Time: Seconds / minutes
Available: Anywhere with high-tension, high-current lines & a good earth
Certainty: Somewhat dependant on luck & how much power goes through you
Notes: Don't bother with 110 or 240 volt mains, its just not enough. Some people do get killed with household electricity, but only after several minutes. Use high tension lines, stand in bare feet on waterlogged ground (better still, put a piece of THICK copper cable into the nearest river). Works best if current path travels through your head, or through the heart. Just burns you badly otherwise. NOTE: people have survived massive high-voltage, high-current shocks with nothing but 3rd degree burns to show for it. Sometimes paralysis, limbs amputated etc.

Explosives
Time: 10 milliseconds, or similar (!)
Available: Difficult to get hold of detonator & good explosives
Certainty: Certain if detonator works properly
Notes: DON'T USE GUNPOWDER or other 'slow' explosives (eg, homemade explosives). Use dynamite or 'Plastique', strap it to your forehead with the detonator, and BOOM! The main problem is with getting hold of high explosives (I know the recipe for Nitro-Glycerine, but home manufacture is extremely risky, and the product is unstable). If you can get a grenade, use it, it's probably the best way of doing this one.

Calle: Recipies for creating explosives can be found, together with the appropriate warnings, in the rec.pyrotechnics FAQ.

Freezing to death (hypothermia)
Time: several hours (15 minutes in very cold water)
Available: Got a large chest freezer? Is the outside temp < -10 degrees?
Certainty: good if you don't get found
Notes: Soak your cloths in water, get into freezer / outside somewhere where you won't be found. Helps to get pissed first - drink yourself silly. If you are near a very cold supply of water (eg, the North Sea, or similar) which is close to zero degrees, this is particularly good, since the average lifespan of someone in the water is 15 minutes. [1] says: ".. have quietly ascended their favorite mountain late in the day .. above the freezing line.. wearing light clothing, they sat down in a secluded spot to await the end. Some have said that they intended to take a tranquilizer to hasten the sleep of death. From what we know of hypothermia, they would pass out as the cold reached a certain level and they would die within a few hours. Of course in a very cold climate there is no need to climb a mountain." [eg, UK in midwinter :-). There was a death in the middle of the city park here just this last winter ('90) where a lady stripped after the park closed for the night.] A problem with this method is that because it slows the metabolism, and prevents damage to the brain, people can be revived several hours after 'death' occasionally.

Jumping in front of trains
Time: Seconds (or hours if unlucky)
Available: Anywhere near a HIGH-SPEED railway line
Certainty: Depends on your timing & speed of train. Go for decapitation
Notes: Probably better to put your neck on the line, since a glancing blow would probably break your spine (& cripple you). High speed trains need a kilometer to stop, so find a blind corner.

Self-immolation
Time: Seconds to days
Available: Anywhere you can get petrol & a match
Certainty: good as long as you are far away from medical help
Notes: bloody painful - one of the most agonising ways to die. If you do survive, you will be disfigured for the rest of your life. Try mixing the petrol with an explosive like TNT or NG, this will make it burn MUCH quicker, even if the explosive is very dilute.

Starving to death
Time: 40 days give or take. Depends on health.
Available: Anywhere where you can't be force-fed
Certainty: Good as long as no medical help & will power holds up
Notes: Supposed to be easier after the first couple of days, since your appetite goes. In a UK prison, you can't be force-fed unless you give permission first, or are diagnosed insane, but I don't know whether this is the same in other countries. Beware - relatives might give permission on your behalf if you are unconsious. (living will / durable power of attorney helps). It may help if you use an appetite suppressant. Amphetamines, and some drugs (MDMA, AKA XTC, AKA ecstasy, AKA metheylenedimethoxymethamphetamine is one such). The problem with these is that they are frequently illegal. I've also heard of something called Aminorex (4-methylaminorex) which was briefly prescribed as an appetite suppressant, but taken off the market since it had fatal side effects... which is hardly a problem!! [1] says:
".. after approximately 20 % of body weight loss, illness will begin to set in, notably severe indigestion, muscle weakness, and _worst of all_ mental incapacity. ... about 40 days before life is seriously theatened. ...."
"In some cases self-starvation can be very painful. ... morphene had to be administered to kill the pain of fatal dehydration. .."

Driving into bridge support at 100 mph
Time: Hopefully instantanious
Available: Fast car, motorway, unprotected bridge....
Certainty: So-so, put a couple of cans of petrol on the passenger seat to make it certain, & USE YOUR SEATBELT
Notes: Bridges are usually protected in the UK, don't know about USA. Avoid being thrown out of the car by using the seatbelt, and put petrol (in cans or just splashed about) near to the driver's seat just to make certain. Can be made to look accidental.

Shotgun
Time: Instantanious if you are lucky
Available: Difficult in UK, easier in USA (due to gun laws)
Certainty: Fairly certain
Notes: 12-gauge shotgun with 3 inch Magnum shells with #2 to #000 buckshot. See "Bullet" for other points. This is the recommended way to die by firearm. Apparently the shells suggested here are "extreme overkill", but thats the point really... problem here is that its amazingly messy - who is going to pick the festering lumps of gore out of the carpet? Another problem is that it is possible to miss your brain entirely, and just blow off your face instead.

Enlist (silly)
Time: Jan 15 '91 or other conflict
Available: Just pop down to the local army office & sign on as a squaddie
Certainty: Be a "hero". Life expectancy in a battle is 20 minutes
Notes: I don't think this is an entirely serious suggestion, particularly since only 10% ever see the front line, and only a few of those ever see combat.

Calle: You could always get employed as a mercenary. That way you'll at least see combat, improving your chances to die vastly. Still, a silly method.

Pencils up your nose, bang down onto table (urban legend?)
Time: Seconds or never
Available: All you need is a couple of sharp pencils and a table
Certainty: Very uncertain
Notes: This is a myth, I think, since the pencils would go into your frontal lobes, which are basically optional. This is the legendary "exam suicide". Fine if you want a DIY frontal- lobotomy rather than death!

Calle: This is an urban legend, see the alt.folklore.urban FAQ for more details.

Getting someone to murder you
Time: Depends on method used
Available: Know any murderous psychopaths? No, not the tax people...
Certainty: Depends on method used, & dedication of murderer
Notes: Forget it. Unless you contract someone to do it, the chances are that you are going to wake up in hospital without your wallet. If you do contract someone, how are you going to pay them? Can't take them to court for running off with your money and not doing the job.

Make yourself into an h-bomb (another silly one)
Time: Speed of light over 1/2 metre (couple of nanoseconds)
Available: Nuke (fission OR fusion), 10 litres of heavy water
Certainty: 100%
Notes: Drink the heavy water for several days, strap yourself to the nuke, and press the button. If you retained a couple of litres of the heavy water, the additional yield should be 6 megajoules (give or take a few orders of magnitude). Note that heavy water is a poison, so you might not survive that long anyway.

Calle: If I remember my physics correctly, there will be no reaction in your body no matter how much heavy water you have ingested. Not that it matters if you're sitting on an exploding hydrogen bomb!

Micromachines/nanocomputers (science fiction)
Time: years or a fraction of a second - depends how you look at it
Available: in 50 -> 1000 years time?
Certainty: Good assuming that the technology is developed
Notes: Basically, this involves a 'replicator' panel. You program it to replicate yourself, simplifying very slightly, with the exception of the urge to use this technique. After a while, you turn into a mindless zombie, trudging around from the exit of the machine to the entrance, for eternity. Strange philosophical implications.

Calle: If you postulate nanomachines, why not use the deconstructor kind? Take your body apart into its component molecules in less than a minute... A silly method, if you hadn't guessed.

Scuba-diving (various fatal 'accidents')
Time: see notes -most are minutes/hours
Available: scuba diving gear, nobody around
Certainty: see notes
Notes: The first method is to rise 30 metres or so without releasing your breath. Assuming that you can do it, it should cause your lungs to burst. The second is the bends - stay under long enough for the nitrogen to dissolve (30 metres for 30 minutes). go up rapidly without decompression time. This is unreliable, and may cause brain / joint damage. The third way is Carbon Monoxide poisoning - fill your tank with it, and stay away from other divers. You will fall asleep fairly quickly. See CO in poisons section. The final way is oxygen poisoning - however, this means that you have to go very deep with an oxygen-rich mix, and there are problems associated with that. The advantage of these methods is that insurance companies / relatives will assume that it was an accident ('misadventure'), with the possible exception of the CO poisoning.

The source of this follows: (from the net) "Rising 30m without exhaling will usually result in an over pressured lung, possible subcuteaneous emphazema, collapsed lung, death usually from drowning in your own blood. Rather painful and usually curable if you are rescued, but fair chance of dying if you aren't.

Building up a high residual nitrogen time (say 30m for 30 min) then coming up without decompressing will get you bent fairly nicely. You don't feel much, but your joints tend to start stiffening up after half an hour. Death is very uncertain, coming from a stroke. Brain damage, joint damage etc are most likely. Pobably can be recued but some damage certain. Oxygen poisoning, going down 50+m until the partial pressure of the oxygen reaches a toxic level. Difficult to accomplish, very painful to get down that deep, cold pressure etc, possibility of nitrogen narcosis and forgetting what you are doing. Probably get bent, good chance of rescue.

CO poisoning, mix a healthy batch of carbon monoxide in your tank as you dive, you tend to go to sleep under water, when combined with the above methods you have a pretty good winner, don't forget to forget your BCD."

Sucking your brains out (silly)
Time: Minutes
Available: You'd need a Puma (TM) robot, & some other bits
Certainty: certain, given proper programming
Notes: You would need an industrial robot to do this properly. Give it a saw attachment, a sucking tube attachment, and program it. Make a head restraint. When you are fixed securely into the restraint, start the robot's program. It will drill a hole in your head, and stick the tube into the hole. Program it to wiggle the tube back and forth so that it doesn't miss anything. This might work better if you put a stream of water into the hole as well, so that the sucking attachment doesn't just suck air all the time. Debugging the program could be amusing.

Microwaves
Time: ?
Available: Source of strong microwave emissions
Certainty: ?
Notes: Cooking yourself. Point is to raise your core body temperature to fatal levels.

Calle: Does anyone have any information on this? All that I know is that standing in front of a Swedish coast surveillance radar (which happens to use exactly the same wavelength as your average microwave oven) is a Bad Thing.

Dehydration
Time: a week or so?
Available: you need to be able to stop medical help.
Certainty: certain if your will-power stands up to it.
Notes: Don't eat or drink. Remember that food contains a high proportion of water. Avoiding medical help can be difficult. See 'starving to death'.

Skydiving 'accident'
Time: pretty damn quick.
Available: need to join a skydiving club. Takes much time and money.
Certainty: Fairly certain. People have fallen from extreme heights and survived. The resulting injuries are not fun.
Notes: Join a skydiving club, continue to practise it for a while to clear off all suspicions and then once pack your parachute in a real mess (preferably knotted up, but not too clearly) and then jump. The para will not open and you will reach a terminal velocity of 220 km/h (160 mph/120 kn). Death is instant in the impact with the Planet Earth.

This has the advantages of being 'accidental', and your family/ friends do not have the additional pain and guilt associated with suicides.

Calle: In addition to the above, you need to remove or disable your reserve parachute (which is not easy, I'm told). There are better "accidental" methods than this.

A correspondent who is a skydiver dislikes this entry, since if people use it it will give skydiving an undeservedly bad reputation.

Death by a thousand cuts; modern version (silly)
Time: variable
Available: a heck of a lot of razor-wire.. maybe a high-voltage supply
Certainty: not very good
Notes: This is a modern variant of the Arabic 'Death of a thousand cuts'. Basically, jump onto a stack of unravelled razor wire, and roll around till you die.. it may help to connect a high- voltage, low current power supply to the wire, so that you have spasms, which should keep you getting cut even when you are unconscious. Also, you should make sure that you can't roll off the wire.

Crushing
Time: seconds to minutes, depends on car press
Available: a car press.. any good junkyard
Certainty: certain as long as you can't escape
Notes: This is an elegantly simple one.. get into a car, in a car press, and shortly afterwards be squashed to death as your body is converted into a red pulp. It may be tricky getting the press to trigger, but if you hide in the car someone may come along and activate it. There are other ways of getting crushed, this just happens to be the most effective I can think up on the spur of the moment. Getting yourself run over by a fully loaded articulated lorry is quite good. You should remember that people quite often survive the actual crushing; they die when the weight is taken OFF them.

World War Three
Time: moments if you are near a militarilly significant site
Available: happen to be one of the 'key-holders'? president maybe?
Certainty: pretty certain
Notes: All you have to do is trigger world war three. Fire an ICBM or three at the Chinese and the Russians... This method has the advantage that you take everyone else with you! Trouble is, the number of people with the requisite access is minimal, and I sort of doubt that any readers of ASH can do this.

Calle: Lots harder since the collapse of the Soviet Union... Silly.

Heatstroke
Time: 4 hours or more
Available: Very hot day; no disturbance from neighbours etc
Certainty: depends on the weather
Notes: Basically, the point is to give yourself extreme heatstroke. You should pass out after a few hours. Use some aluminium foil to direct the sun's heat onto you, to speed up the process a bit. Try to reduce the chance of being interuppted, take off the phone etc. Obviously, start in the morning! Helps if the outside temperature is >100F.

Acid bath
Time: depends on acid
Available: a lot of a very strong acid
Certainty: fairly good
Notes: [from alt.suicide.holiday]
"summer heat got you down? Try the new and improved neighbourhood acid bath. Most metal working plants and some auto-repair shops will have a nice soothing acid bath. This, of course, is for those of you who enjoy extreme pain and don't want to make a mess for others to clean up. If you don't leave a note chances are they will never know what happened, aside from the shop / plant being broken into."

Fake car bomb
Time: milliseconds
Available: explosive
Certainty: fairly good if enough explosive
Notes: This is a modification of the basic use-explosives method. What you do, is make a homemade car bomb, and drive off happily after chatting with your neighbour about how well your life is going, apart from a few minor death-threats from an Iraqi death-squad.. To confuse the authorities even more, have a note in your pocket listing the telephone numbers of all the eastern foreign embassies in your pocket, together with a little line of random "code numbers" next to each.., and a random but large amount of cash listed against each code number. :-) Oh yes, and a heavily annotated copy of Jane's Defence Weekly - Xhosa edition.

Jumping off bridges (slice and dice with piano wire)
Time: 9.87 ms-2; 4 to 10 meters; calculate it yourself!
Available: Rope, pianowire and a high bridge.
Certainty: Fairly certain
Notes: Never been tried. Can also be used with a fairly high building, but then the art-motive will disappear.

Cut the rope and wire in various lengths. Each length must not be longer than the height of the bridge.

Tie one end of the ropes and wires to the bridge Tie the other part of the ropes to different bodyparts like thigh, calves, torso etc. Then tie the pianowires around your joints. (Don't forget your genitals..)

When you jump various parts of you body are whipped away by the pianowire nooses, and your bits are held up by the ropes swaying in the breeze. If you to this right you should end up with just your torso hanging by it's neck above the sea, highway, ground.

Do it with friends, and call it art.

Being eaten alive
Time: depends, but probably a couple of minutes
Available: zoo, or live in Africa/wherever
Certainty: not brilliant.. what if they're not hungry and don't finish?
Notes: basically, find one or more hungry carnivores... tigers are nice. Also, sharks, lions, any of the big cats..

Being burned up in unprotected re-entry (silly)
Time: probably a few minutes
Available: if you happen to be able to get into orbit
Certainty: about as certain as you can get!
Notes: Just go for a spacewalk in a low earth orbit, and decelerate enough to enter the atmosphere. You'll get a great view...

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
Time: Incubation period 1 to 10 years, death within 2 years of diagnosis of AIDS, Can have HIV for years/decades
Dosage: Just one intimate contact with an Infected person of any gender
Available: Available to all for free
Certainty: 99.9% certainty AFTER infected
Notes: [2]:
This is not painfree. This method may cost you alot of money if you allow others to get you medical attention. It may a little difficult to get infected as people who know they have it may not comply with your request. Could be great fun attempting to get infected depending upon your attitude (remember -any gender - you don't have to limit yourself - you're going to die, you might as well try it ;). Should be quite devasting to your family & close friends. You also get the satisfaction of leaving behind a virtual unrecognizable-as-you body ! This also gives you the prime opportunity to point your finger at your dentist and say he did it for all the times you have suffered in their chair. Happy dying !

Calle: May not be so certain any more. Ten years may well be long enough for someone to develop a cure. Silly, IMHO.

Auto-decapitation by car (added by Calle)
Time: Real quick
Available: You need access to a car and a rope
Certainty: I wouldn't trust it
Notes:
Comes from alt.suicide.holiday. Basic idea is to tie one end of the rope around your neck, tie the other end to a real solid object, get into the car and accelerate away as fast as the car can manage. When you reach the end of the rope, your head gets torn off. Be sure to use enough rope and fasten your seat belt.

A posting to a.s.h. in July 1993 says that someone in Washinton State, USA actually used this method to commit suicide, so it can't be that bad. The posting said that 25 feet of rope were used (about 7.5 meters), which does sound a bit short. Perhaps he had a real awesome car.

Death by painting your body (very silly, and wrong)
Dosage : Less than 1 can of paint depending on your body type
Time : ? Probably less than 8 hours
Availability : Very available ! You have a choice of greasepaint or House paint. You need a type of paint that will not allow your pores to breath in order to be successful at this. You also have a smashing selection of colors you can choose to die in ! Nile Green ? Blood Red ? Basic Black ? Or any combo you desire.. If you couldn't decide before what to wear to die in, this method will cause you considerable angst.
Certainty : This is a sure method, provided you have a paint that will block your pores from breathing. Don't forget the bottom of your feet. You must paint every last bit of available skin. If your pores can breathe, you won't die.
Notes : I read this in some theater journal 5 or so years ago, saying when you you do full body makeup, you must insure that parts of the body are left naked to breathe or the actor will die. Usually for full body makeup, they leave the bottoms of feet, and some patterns on the body, like lines so the actor doesn't suffocate.

Calle: This is an *extremely* silly one. It was in the "not yet edited" portion of Mike's file, and I think it is quite straight from an a.s.h. posting. This method does not work. As you can check in most any book on human anatomy, the skin does not breathe. The only places in your body which absorbs oxygen are the lungs and the corneas, and the corneas only feed themselves. You might get ill or even die if you use poisonous paint, though.


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