2007-07-11 22:28:35 · 19 answers · asked by Anonymous in Health ➔ Diseases & Conditions ➔ Heart Diseases
If it is a large one, the heart stops and people die. If it is a tiny one in an IV line, it's ok.
2007-07-11 22:34:06 · answer #1 · answered by mama woof 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
It depends on the size of the bubble. Small bubbles dissolve easily in the blood, so no problem. A big enough bubble can cause brain damage (it acts rather like a blood clot in the brain - obstructs blood flow. Brain cells die very quickly when starved of blood). Similarly, a simply huge bubble might airlock the heart, with equally fatal results.
Between the wars Dorothy Sayers wrote a murder story in which this was the modus operandi; a woman used it to bump off an aged relative for money, then to kill a potential witness, leaving no trace of poison in the body nor any very obvious mortal wound.
I never heard of anyone actually dying this way - but perhaps you wouldn't. It's just too neat.
2007-07-12 05:43:53 · answer #2 · answered by Michael B 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
If it is small, nothing, it is filtered out at your pulmonary circulation. If it is very large it will get trapped in your right ventricle of your heart and cause outflow obstruction. This can be fatal.
If you are unlucky enough to have a heart defect, like a hole in your heart. Even a small air bubble can be very dangerous. It can cross from your right side of your heart to your left without being filtered out by your pulmonary circulation. It can then get lodged into an artery supplying your heart or brain causing you a stroke or heart attack.
The medical term for it is an air em bolus and there have been many reported deaths.
2007-07-12 12:55:53 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Michael B is correct regarding the size of the bubble. Small bubbles get run in all the time using IV pumps. It's more of a hazard with a central line (it goes directly into a heart chamber) because with a large enough air bubble trapped in the heart chamber, blood can neither go in or out during pumping.
2007-07-12 08:20:49 · answer #4 · answered by rcd9229 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Absolutely NOTHING. This is simply a MYTH, not a fact. I am a RN who did some research a few years ago, on the different ways people 'attempt' suicide. This was one of them, and I found many articles about this. First of all, I have to ask, "why are you asking"? If you are even going to attempt to use this as a form of attempted suicide, forget it....it won't work. Get some help please.
2007-07-12 08:26:35 · answer #5 · answered by kdblueey 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Nothing most of the time. Its a myth that it will cause a heart attack. Its a polpular method in fiction but that doesn't make it a fact.
2007-07-12 06:08:22 · answer #6 · answered by bouncer bobtail 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
can lead to the bends as divers get thats why doctors always flick a needle before injecting
2007-07-12 15:37:15 · answer #7 · answered by capcave2002 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Apparently small bubbles are fairly common
http://www.springerlink.com/content/54al7jjby6p6mm4j/
and fairly harmless
http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/williamson/235/sicd022.html
writes that it is a near-indetectable way to commit murder.
2007-07-12 08:25:47 · answer #8 · answered by A Guy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If it reaches the brain or heart, the person can die.
2007-07-12 05:32:51 · answer #9 · answered by Mother Amethyst 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
well u die and the reason is it will natrually go as high as possible so it will eventually get to ure brain and where it is blood will not baable to get there so ti dies
2007-07-12 05:31:37 · answer #10 · answered by Harold s 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋