A retired Michigan safety engineer has applied for a patent on an auto airbag for use an an executioner's tool. Emile P. Grenier, who has opposed the device for years, called the airbag "a humane alternative" to the electric chair and other forms of capital punishment.

"This invention consists of a standard commercial airbag as presently used in cars now on the road," he said in his application to the Patent Office. His invention would have the airbag inflated directly under a person's head, resulting in "a force of 12,000 pounds ... which will snap the neck of the person to be executed far more effectively than the hangman's noose with an action so instantaneous as to preclude any pain." Grenier recently retired from Ford Motor Company.

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