Potassium poisoning is it true that it is undetectectable?

Question

And that it will kill in minutes

Answer 1

An issue like this is concerning. If you really want to know I suggest you research it on the net.

Yes, it is detectable,

yes it's treatable

Blessings

Answer 2

I presume we're talking about 'poisoning' as in 'murder'. The potassium is technically undetectable if the person isn't tested until some time after they died. The reason is that when someone is dead, their blood cells burst and their tissues start to break down and this releases massive amounts of potassium, so the result will always be sky high in a dead person. Enough potassium will kill a person rapidly because it disrupts their heart rhythm. However it is very quickly and easily detectable when someone is alive. And of course the only way to get enough potassium into someone in order to kill them would be to inject them. And injection sites are perfectly detectable. If there was a problem establishing the cause of death and there were suspicous circumstances, the person's body would be examined in extreme detail!

Answer 3

Not that it's undetectable, it's that it wouldn't be so odd to see potassium in the body since it's naturally in there. So it wouldn't show that a person was poisoned, but rather of heart failure.

You would need sharp eyes, suspicion, and forensics to figure it out. There was a line of killings in a hospital some time ago from a nurse injecting nearly healthy patients with KCl.

Answer 4

Absolutely detectable, definitely treatable and very common. I fix it almost weekly in my hospital.