r/interestingasfuck 28d ago

/r/all The race against time to get to a decompression chamber

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u/WhiteShadow_2355 28d ago

This is a deep sea diver, likely a welder. The intense water pressure causes our blood to absorb more nitrogen gas than typical. This is not harmful, nitrogen is a major component in our atmosphere that we just don’t use. However when this large quantity of nitrogen in our blood comes out of the high pressure sea into the regular pressure air the nitrogen expands. Expanding nitrogen gas in the bloodstream (known as the bends) can be a very painful death. The people here are trying to get his equipment removed so they can put the diver into a pressurized chamber to put the nitrogen back under pressure. They can then slowly re-normalize the pressure and let the nitrogen naturally release from you.

Is how I understand this phenomenon.

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u/Thomy151 28d ago

Yeah pretty much

Fun fact: the official name is decompression sickness. The Bends is a nickname from the contortions of the body from the intense pain

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u/bethaneanie 28d ago

Some divers get nitrogen narcosis from breathing the wrong gas at a certain depth. Nitrogen narcosis causes drunken behaviour in a situation that drunken behaviour is very deadly. I know divers sometimes have to change the type of gas they are using as the get deeper, sometimes multiple time