VX toxic gas is real… so is Alcatraz

I would like to call "The Rock" a masterpiece of American patriotic movies. Even after more than a decade, gun battles, car chases, raids, counter-terrorism and other elements are hardly dated.

I still remember my doubts about the authenticity of the film. Does the island exist in this world? Does that kind of toxic gas exist? I didn't realized until now that real life is indeed above art.

1. VX toxic gas is real

Cage looks so happy

If I say that the VX poison gas bomb, without a line from beginning to end, is a veritable "third lead" in the film, would you deny it?

The poison gas bomb is definitely the third protagonist

Thanks to the VX poison gas bomb, the film attracts concentration. After watching the movie, the green sphere of terror often appears in my dreams.

It's too intense.

Play with marbles? The kind that gets you killed

Many people do not know that VX poison actually exists. Its chemical name is S-(2-diisopropylaminoethyl)-methyl thiophosphate acid ethyl ester. I still admire myself quite a lot for reading it in one breath.

Invented by British chemists in 1962 during the development of an insecticide, it is not produced as an insecticide because it is too toxic. This is also mentioned in the Nicolas Cage's film.

VX is even more toxic than sarin and is considered the deadliest nerve agent, bar none.

VX is a colorless, odorless, oily liquid that turns into gas when exposed to oxygen and can also travel through water sources almost imperceptibly. Contact with human skin or inhalation can lead to poisoning, headache and nausea, followed by central nervous system disorders, respiratory arrest, and eventually death.

As described by a general in the film, 500ml of VX is toxic enough to kill tens of thousands of people when dispersed in the air, equivalent to a small H-bomb. The death after VX poisoning is not as terrible as that in the film, because VX is essentially a nerve agent. Can’t be so corrosively.

So, is there any hope after being poisoned by VX? In fact, the film provides the answer that using atropine for first aid, the Nicolas Cage's item finally plunges into the heart. Atropine, highly toxic in its own right, is a parasympathetic depressant and a "potent drug" against nerve agents.

2. This small island is also real

Alcatraz

The main battlefield of the film, Alcatraz, is also real.

Located in San Francisco Bay, California, the United States of America, a small island, commonly known as "The Rock", is the source for the English title of the film.

Alcatraz covers an area of 0.0763 square kilometers, roughly the size of ten soccer fields. Alcatraz is surrounded by craggy deep water and is not easily accessible outside the United States. This is why the U.S. government selects it as a prison site.

Prison scene

Alcatraz is officially converted to a military prison in 1907 and becomes a federal prison in 1934.

Federal Prison

Notorious felons, gang leaders and escape experts have been incarcerated here.

Chicago's "Godfather" Al Capone

Robert Stroud, a murderer who is gifted with an eye for birds

"Machine Gun" George Kelly

Over the course 30 years, nearly 100 felons have been detained here. Escaping from prison is almost impossible since the island is surrounded by cold, rough waves and ferocious, bloodthirsty sharks.

In 1963, the federal government abandoned the island in view of the high operating cost. Alcatraz was incorporated into the Golden Gate National Park in 1971 and became a tourist attraction. So it is not surprising to see tourists visiting in the film.

Turns into an attraction

During its time as a federal prison, there were 14 escapes on Alcatraz involving 36 inmates, of which 23 were captured, 6 were killed, 2 drowned, and 5 were missing, and officials claimed that these 5 had been swallowed by the sea.

In fact, there are three people that have successfully escaped from the prison. Their names are Frank Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin.

These three people, surprisingly, succeeded

In 1961, the three men began to dig concrete walls with stolen spoons, coins and nail clippers, and even made their own electric drills with stolen vacuum cleaner motors. In the sound of the prison accordion playing, it took a year to dig large holes in the vents of the concrete walls of their respective cubicles and fooled the guards with fake walls made of wet newspaper. Does it sound especially like the bridge in "The Shawshank Redemption"?

Late one night in June 1962, the three men crawled through the hole, then climbed to the roof, clutching a homemade inflatable raft and climbed down 9 meters to evade patrols and escape at the beach. These three "geniuses" made three heads that looked like them out of newspaper, plastic, hair, and paint, putting them on their beds, leaving no clues.

The final obstacle is the 2,500 meters of icy water between the land and Alcatraz. Of course, the three are prepared for this.

According to "Popular Mechanics", they used 50 rubber raincoats to make an inflatable raft 1.8 meters wide, 4.2 meters long with stolen glue, and oars with plywood. In darkness, they set sail and disappeared in the vast sea of the night.

It took a long time for the prison guards to realize something was wrong. After some searching, they only found the abandoned raft and an oar on the shore of Angel Island, nearly 3 kilometers to the north. They could not find any trace of these three men again.

In 1979, Clint Eastwood starred in "Escape from Alcatraz" and perfectly replicated the 1962 escape of these three.

Escape from Alcatraz

In fact, there are a lot adaptions of Alcatraz. In 1962, the year the trio escaped from prison, a film called "Birdman of Alcatraz" was made, depicting how prisoners serving life sentences were rehabilitated to become internationally renowned bird researchers.

"Birdman of Alcatraz"

The sci-fi thriller TV series, "Alcatraz", about the backdrop of the closure of Alcatraz federal prison was released on Fox in 2012.

"Alcatraz"

There really is a lot happening on Alcatraz.