The night before, Gary Ashbrook had watched the Eurovision Song Contest with friends. The next morning, his roommate Michael Young found him naked on his bed in Newhaven, East Sussex, England. He had an inflated condom over his head. Around him were three empty canisters of nitrous oxide — popularly known as laughing gas.
Ashbrook was 31 years old. According to Young’s testimony at the inquest held at Eastbourne Magistrates Court in November 2007, he had spent between two and three months repeating that same practice: he filled the condom with gas, placed it over his face, and inhaled it to intensify sexual pleasure. The technique, learned through contacts in the online sadomasochistic scene, depended on a margin of control that night, for some reason, did not exist. The autopsy confirmed the cause of death: asphyxia. The case was declared a tragic accident. 😶
Gary Ashbrook’s name has resurfaced several times on the internet since then, always as a warning about high-risk sexual practices. A man who believed he knew exactly the limits of what he was doing. Until he didn’t.
