I am a physician who practices intensive care medicine and I work in an ICU, where I do a lot of anesthesia/sedation with a wide variety of drugs.
LaMambisa said:
if there's a substance that could simulate death for a short time?
The short answer is no, there is no such drug. But what do you mean by "simulate death"? Most IV and inhaled anesthetics make a person become unconscious and stop breathing, which is why we need to breath for them soon after giving the drugs. If you want to make the heart stop beating, that is another matter: no one can survive that for more than a minute or two without severe organ damage. A key point is that these drugs are unpredictable in exactly what they will do to a given individual. Plus, I have to tell you that dead people look dead: when one has seen a lot of this, as I have, he or she would be hard to fool. It is not just the breathing and heartbeat: they look dead.
For another plot point, is there something that could cause the victim to resemble jaundice (turning skin yellow)?
Many drugs can cause liver injury, which is what jaundice is usually from. Acute liver infection (hepatitis) would be the most usual cause of rapid onset of jaundice. PM me if you have specific scenarios that you want to run by me.
