suprasteve
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I was surfing the 'net and came across this site: Autopsy Protocol Dr. Raymond Sawchuk
The quotation below was from that site:
"We know air embolism can occur in water depths of as little as 6 to 8 feet in experiments with animals. It has been shown transpulmonic pressure differential of 80 mm of mercury is enough to rupture the wall of the alveoli or air sacs forcing air into the pulmonary vasculature. This pressure gradient corresponds to a change in water depth or pressure of approximately 4 to 6 feet."
This got me thinking about decompression depths, mainly the fact that our stops are in intervals of 10 feet (stop at 30', stop at 20', stop at 10', etc). According to that article an ascent from a decompression stop at 10 feet, assuming you were fully saturated at that depth, could result in an embolism. I'm sure the tests the article is referring to are extreme examples, but being fully saturated at 10' isn't hard to do. I have never heard of deco stops at, say 5' or anything shallower than 10', and I'm sure it isn't common to suffer an embolism when following a proper deco schedule, but it sounds a little scary. Am I missing something here?
The quotation below was from that site:
"We know air embolism can occur in water depths of as little as 6 to 8 feet in experiments with animals. It has been shown transpulmonic pressure differential of 80 mm of mercury is enough to rupture the wall of the alveoli or air sacs forcing air into the pulmonary vasculature. This pressure gradient corresponds to a change in water depth or pressure of approximately 4 to 6 feet."
This got me thinking about decompression depths, mainly the fact that our stops are in intervals of 10 feet (stop at 30', stop at 20', stop at 10', etc). According to that article an ascent from a decompression stop at 10 feet, assuming you were fully saturated at that depth, could result in an embolism. I'm sure the tests the article is referring to are extreme examples, but being fully saturated at 10' isn't hard to do. I have never heard of deco stops at, say 5' or anything shallower than 10', and I'm sure it isn't common to suffer an embolism when following a proper deco schedule, but it sounds a little scary. Am I missing something here?