Over the past 120 years, more than 120 convicted criminals have been executed in the United States of America. And although the so-called "lethal injection", when a cocktail of three medicines in a lethal dosage is administered to a condemned prisoner to death, is considered one of the most humane methods of execution in the history of mankind, more than 7% of such procedures in America are not as smooth as I would like the supporters of the death penalty.
But there is a list of the most chilling cases when instead of a peaceful and painless death, prisoners, tied to a chair for a lethal injection, suffered a real hell.
Romel Broome was sentenced to death for a terrible crime - a man kidnapped right on the street, raped and stabbed a fourteen-year-old girl with a knife several times. When the maniac was caught, no one had any doubts about what punishment to sentence him to. After Broome spent more than 25 years on death row, it was finally decided to carry out the execution and was scheduled for September 15, 2009.
When the prisoner was strapped to the chair and everything was ready for the execution, the prison staff responsible for enforcing the sentence suddenly faced a rather unexpected problem. Since Romel had no years of drug use behind him, the executioners could not find at least one vein on the killer's body suitable for inserting a catheter. At some stage, the suicide bomber began to cry from despair, and even, spicing up his speech with good abusive expressions, tried to help the jailers in search of an elusive vein.
After more than two hours of vain searches, the doctors admitted their powerlessness, and the prisoner was sent back to the cell. Apparently, the state authorities did not dare to try number two, and Broome is still on death row, becoming one of the few people to whom, after the last supper, they also brought breakfast.
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law abiding citizen
Charles Frederick Warner was hated in prison by everyone, from the guards to other prisoners, because his crime was truly inhuman. Black man found guilty of rape and murder of an eleven month old baby! It is still unknown what exactly happened on the night that Warner was supposed to be executed, but, apparently, it was his case that inspired the writers of the famous film Law Abiding Citizen, where a desperate avenger decided to get even with his family's killers in a very extravagant way.
By an unfortunate accident, by the will of providence, or by someone's malicious intent, the potassium chloride, which was supposed to quickly and painlessly stop the monster's heart, was replaced with potassium acetate, a substance that is used in funeral homes for mummification and embalming of bodies.
It is scary to imagine what a person who is embalmed alive, pumping acid into their veins should feel, however, the last thing that Warner managed to shout before he died was "My body is on fire!"
Experiment victim
Another man named Clayton Lockett was sentenced to lethal injection for robbery, two rapes and murder. Apparently, because of such an abundance of crimes, the Oklahoma state authorities considered him an ideal candidate for testing new drugs for the execution of the sentence.
Hearing about this, Lockett made three unsuccessful attempts at suicide in the hope of avoiding the terrible fate that would await him, should the doctors make a mistake with the chemical or its dosage. As practice has shown, Clayton really had something to fear, because what he experienced turned out to be much worse than death.
Despite the many conflicting evidences about the effectiveness of such a drug as "midazolam", the stubborn jailers decided to go all the way, and, having difficulty finding at least one "living" vein on the bandit's body, they injected him with this drug, which should have made him unconscious … When the prison doctor stated that Lockett had finally passed out, the experimenters began injecting him with two previously untested drugs. However, the suicide bomber remained conscious.
As the poison entered his bloodstream, Clayton suddenly opened his eyes and began screaming at the top of his lungs in pain. The suicide bomber screeched, groaned, wriggled, tried to break the belts and pull the catheter out of the vein, however, it was all in vain. Ultimately, the poison did its job, and Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack, which, among other things, was probably caused more by painful shock than by the action of a chemical cocktail.
