Blood flow stops, and eventually so does your heart. There's nothing to get any purchase on the air just compresses. Now imagine a massive air embolus shows up and your heart starts squeezing on that. In ordinary operation, its contracting chambers squeeze the blood out and force it through the circulatory system. Your heart, like the fuel pump in an old car (cars with modern fuel injection work differently), is a simple mechanical device. Fatal? Probably not, although see below.Ī big bubble, on the other hand, gets us into the vapor lock scenario. A small bubble impedes blood flow the same way a solid obstruction would - the bubble's surface tension relative to its size is too great for the force of blood to break it up or shove it along. Small bubbles can block capillaries in vital organs, most critically the brain, causing anything from pain and inflammation to neurological damage and paralysis. Here we need to distinguish between little bubbles and big ones, because they do damage in different ways. Another possibility arises during ascent after scuba diving, where an increase in air volume in the lungs pushes tiny bubbles of air into the bloodstream that expand as you rise.
More common is air entering accidentally via injection or IV tube, or when blood vessels are cut during surgery. We've discussed some bizarre routes here in the past - for example, by blowing into the vagina of a pregnant woman during oral sex. I'll explain that shortly, but first we need to understand how air gets into the blood in the first place. If an air bubble gets into a blood vessel, so might you. If vapor developed in the fuel line, the engine died. One way is akin to vapor lock, an automotive problem in the beaters of my youth.
The mechanism of death or injury depends on the size of the air embolus (the bubble) and where it lodges in the body. Air embolism, as the MDs call air in the bloodstream, can definitely kill you. Sure thing, Scott - maybe this will tide you over till the next car wreck. But if so, how does it stop your heart? How much is too much? Is it 100 percent lethal? Please give us all the gruesome details. What's the deal with air in your bloodstream being lethal? Is this true? I have to assume it is presumably it's the reason for tapping on a syringe to get the air out of it.
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