There’s a common saying that you can’t die from holding your breath, because once you pass out, the autonomic nervous system takes over and you’ll start breathing again.
The inspiration for this question is this video of a guy who apparently almost died from holding his breath too long, and being told to breathe while he was blacked out is what saved his life. People in the comments are praising the rescuers for saving the guy’s life by slapping him and shouting at him to breathe after he passed out from holding his breath, and are acting like had the rescuers not yelled at him to breathe, he surely would’ve died.
Not just from that, no.
At some point, if there’s no underlying problem, the co2 levels in the blood will get high enough the involuntary system kicks in and you’ll take a breath, which will keep going.
Now, there are health conditions that can interfere with that, and something environmental might cause a problem, but assuming none of that is the case, all those good samaritans did was make it happen sooner.
You can choke someone out, and they’ll still breathe eventually.
If you “Burke” someone, that’s a different story, but even then it’s still possible for the autonomic breathing to kick back in.