The first drug induces unconsciousness, the second drug causes paralysis and halts breathing, and the third stops the heart.
The sodium thiopental is followed by two other drugs: pancuronium bromide, or Pavulon, which causes paralysis and halts breathing as well, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart within seconds.
A former hospital nurse pleaded no contest to killing 10 patients nearly six years ago by injecting them with a drug used to temporarily halt breathing.
Dr. Chapman's original approach, still the policy in the federal prison system and in most of the 37 death-penalty states that use lethal injection, calls for an overdose of a barbiturate, sodium thiopental, which causes unconsciousness and in sufficient doses can also halt breathing.
In the effort to find less gruesome ways to execute condemned prisoners, more than two dozen states — including California — adopted a lethal injection protocol developed by Oklahoma in the late 1970s in which the prisoner is rendered insensate with one injection, then given a paralytic to halt breathing and a third drug to stop the heart.
When a state legislator reached out to him in the late 1970s for advice, Chapman suggested using a three-drug cocktail to kill prisoners: a barbiturate to anesthetize the person; pancuronium bromide to paralyze the body and halt breathing; and potassium chloride to stop the heart.
But snoring and the sleep interruptions from short halts in breathing, or sleep apnea, and from bursts of short and shallow breaths, called hyponea, virtually disappeared.
As she approached our floor, her footsteps became halting, her breathing heavy.
There he confronts a neighbor who stole from his mother just before the family was driven out by Serb thugs: "As she approached our floor, her footsteps became halting, her breathing heavy.
She wrote that she doubted Mr. Heywood was killed by cyanide administered by Ms. Gu: "Wang said acute cyanide poisoning usually causes a quick death with noticeable symptoms such as convulsions, coma and a sudden halt in breathing that Gu or Gu's accessory should have described in their account of the crime, but did not," The A.P. reported.
At the door to Vivien's bedroom, Amanda halted and the others crowded against her, breathing in one another's heat and freshness, aftershave and wool, shampoo: they were middle-aged, but still clean and competent, at least.
