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Here is the letter in question from an anaesthetist -

Thank you for your enquiry. I would like to inform you that you are not the first enquirer with this question. Professor Hatch, our Clinical Advisor, has given the following previous comments:

"I can give you a categorical assurance that it would not be possible to render someone unconscious with ether without their knowledge, even if they were sleeping at the time. Ether is an extremely pungent agent and a relatively weak anaesthetic by modern standards and has a very irritant affect of the air passages, causing coughing and sometimes vomiting. It takes some time to reach unconsciousness, even if given by direct application to the face on a rag, and the concentration needed by some sort of spray into a room would be enormous. The smell hangs around for days and would be obvious to anyone the next day.

There are much more powerful agents around now, some of which are almost odourless. However, these would be unlikely to be able to achieve the effect you describe, and the cost would be huge enough to deter any thief unless he was after the crown jewels. The only practicable agent is probably the one used by the Russians in the Moscow siege - I advised the BBC on their programme about this. The general feeling is that they used an agent which is not available outside the KGB!

Finally, unsupervised anaesthesia, which is what we are really talking about is very dangerous. In the Moscow siege about 20% of victims died from asphyxia, because their airways were unprotected. If the reports you talk about are true I would have expected a significant number of deaths or cases of serious brain damage to have been reported."

I hope this information is helpful to you.

Regards,

Ms Shirani Nadarajah
General Administrator

Professional Standards Directorate
The Royal College of Anaesthetists""

Quote: Originally posted by twooks on 10/12/2007

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re-iteration noted - as was your original post - but how about some details ??
was it your van? what kind of van? what kind of screens? how were they attached? was it night / day / busy / quiet? where they vandalised or stolen?
???????????????????????

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My van. Bedford / Isuzu panel van that was converted into a campervan. If I remember it was in end May early June. Day time.  The place was as busy as ever. Stolen. Held on with rubber sucker thingys. Incidently, I also lost a good Thule roof rack at the same time.

It was quite funny because when I reported it, the Rozzers were there in 20 minutes. When I had a lot of kit stolen from the back of my daughter's house in Croyde I never saw a policeman at all. So 1 theft =£65 and three Policeman / cars - the other? £1600 worth and never saw anyone.

Pleas don't let's rehash the gassing business because it always turns nasty. Please let's keep on topic.

These things do get vandellised and they do get stolen so from my perspective I do not consider it to be an "Urban Myth"

Quote: Originally posted by twooks on 11/12/2007

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sounds like rotten luck :-(    
- but at least you got a police response :-))

Sorry to be pedantic but I would not class your screen as 'silver screen' I would always assume that this term referred to the screens made by silver screen and taylors - as the wrap around variety which are fastened over the cab doors.
I know you can get the sucker type and I think that the 'silver screens' for other than windscreen are like that.

Yes - stuff gets nicked unless it's nailed down - and sometimes even then !! And it sounds as though that campsite deserves a miss - or at least a lot of caution.

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the title heading of this post was "Stolen External Screens " and that's what I had stolen.