Slowly suffocating for 20 minutes

For 20 agonising minutes, he suffocated.

You see some awful things at slaughterhouses. From tiny piglets and 5-day old calves crying for their mothers, to sheep and goats spasming as they bleed out. But sometimes what is the hardest to watch is not violent, or bloody. This was one of those times.

When the gas hits pigs in a gas chamber, it is usually just a few metres from where they are forced in and they react violently, thrashing, screaming and gasping for air as they suffocate to death. It’s a horrific way to die.

When we captured footage from three Victorian gas chambers earlier this year, we didn’t imagine it could get any worse…

Fast forward to last month at BMK Foods slaughterhouse in Murray Bridge, South Australia. Watching back our footage, it wasn’t long before we realised something was even more wrong than usual.

We watched as pigs began gasping for air and foaming at the mouth even before they were lowered into the chamber.

One pig continues to haunt us.

As soon as he was herded in it was obvious that the gas was affecting him. Within seconds he was gasping and after two minutes he’d collapsed to the floor, shaking all over.

For over 20 minutes, this pig and 3 others were held at the top of the gas chamber, as they gasped for air.

If you’ve ever held your breath underwater and gone as long as possible before coming up for air, you’ll know the desperate burning in your chest and the panic that starts to take over as your brain screams at you for oxygen. Imagine feeling that for five minutes, then ten, fifteen and finally twenty. The agony is indescribable.

When he was finally lowered into the higher concentrations of gas he would have experienced the burning of his eyes, nose and mouth as the gas turned all liquid on his body to fire. His last breath would have been like a stab to the heart.

We cannot allow the Australian pork industry to continue this brutal, archaic practice.

We must ban gas chambers.