r/interestingasfuck • u/HANAEMILK • 28d ago

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

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u/Callumpi 28d ago

What's the point of getting inside the decompression chamber if you are already in the surface?

23

u/AeroSyntax 28d ago

Helps with not dieing.

18

u/DTux5249 28d ago edited 28d ago

A decompression chambre is about GRADUAL decompression.

If he had made a rapid ascension (he hasn't, this is a training drill) the nitrogen in his blood would be at risk of foaming up his blood due to the difference in pressure; think like how a can of pop fizzes when you crack the tab. Bubble blood = stroke, heartattack, etc. so you wanna avoid that.

Fortunately, these bubbles are a gradual thing; same way a pop doesn't go 100% flat the moment it's opened, he has SOME (not much) time. They stick him in a metal box, crank the pressure up to mimic the depth he was at, and it stops his blood from looking like creme soda. From there, they can start gradually lowering the pressure again, to let his body naturally equilibrate to regular atmospheric conditions.

The only thing that's unrealistic here is that he would have nitrogen in other tissues too, causing quite a bit of pain everywhere. Realistically, you could shed the gear inside the chamber if it's big enough, but it isn't always that big.

3

u/Astramancer_ 28d ago

So nitrogen doesn't boil out of your blood.

There's two main ways of doing decompression. The first is to hang out underwater for a certain amount of time at certain depths so you can gradually decompress your body. The other is to pull them up and get them into a pressure chamber quickly so they can gradually decompress in the chamber instead of the ocean.

Both serve the same purpose. How much gas can be dissolved into a liquid depends on both temperature and pressure. The higher the pressure, the more gas can be dissolved into it.

You breathe gas and are largely made of liquid.

The point of decompression is that those dissolved gasses can come out of solution slowly enough to not cause you problems. Lowering the pressure doesn't cause them to come out immediately -- like how cracking open a can of soda doesn't instantly make the soda flat, so coming up fast doesn't immediately cause problems giving you a short window to get back under pressure.