Explosive decompression at altitude: what happens to a person, the consequences

It is already known how low environmental pressure affects the human body. But how many people know what danger is covered by explosive decompression at altitude? In a few seconds, the lungs completely collapse, the blood pressure drops to the lower limit, which causes inevitable death.

What is decompression?

Decompression is a condition in which atmospheric pressure drops sharply. This happens if the airtightness of a flying device is suddenly violated, or when the swimmer ascends to the water surface quickly. When people work in conditions where the pressure is several times higher than the atmospheric pressure , gases are compressed when inhaled, which causes them to dissolve in tissues and blood in unacceptably high amounts. If it suddenly falls, there is a foaming of the gases, as a result of which the movement of blood in the blood vessels stops .

When an airplane or a spacecraft collides with a meteorite or as a result of an accident some important systems fail, explosive decompression occurs. This phenomenon happens when flying at an altitude of more than nine thousand meters.

Decompression disease

With decompression sickness, not only the conduction in small vessels, but also the rheological properties of the blood, disrupt the formation of thrombotic masses on the surface of the vesicles, which is called aerothrombosis.

The ratio of the final atmospheric pressure to the initial pressure decreases by more than two times in one second. Equalization of the sum of the pressure of water vapor with barometric and carbon dioxide is observed. This is the reason that the oxygen content in the tissues approaches zero, and human breathing becomes not oxygen, but nitrogen.

The clinical picture defines decompression sickness with gas embolism of the vascular system, which consists of three types:

1. Circulatory disturbance in the form of attacks of angina and myocardial infarction, a tendency to form blood clots.
2. Severe itching, muscular and joint pains of a drilling character, subcutaneous emphysema.
3. Failure of central nervous system functions: nausea, vomiting, speech disorder, convulsions, paralysis.
4. Acute congestive heart failure as a result of the accumulation of gases in the cavities of the heart.

The effect of decompression on the body

Explosive decompression, as well as general decompression, has a great impact on the human body. It should be noted some of its features. Too much action belongs to the drop in pressure in the airplane, as well as to excessively high nervous tension due to an emergency situation. Explosive decompression is considered a powerful irritant, which can greatly affect a person.

If such conditions arise, the pilot for some time is frightened and confused, as a result, allows irreparable mistakes, endangering the lives of passengers and his own.

Important pathogenetic factors in explosive decompression

At an altitude of more than sixteen kilometers, the body is exposed to a whole complex of pathogenetic factors. These include: oxygen deficiency, strong ultraviolet radiation, lowering of atmospheric pressure and cold.

Victims as a result of catastrophes are subjected simultaneously or in sequence to the influence of the following factors: shock and dynamic overload, lightning headwind and blast wave, thermal and atmospheric electricity, injuries by loose objects, shaking, vibration.

Impact effects: if a person is close to the cabin with a large hole, it can get injured or, worse, be thrown overboard. In reality, pushing a person through a hole is a rare case.

Hypoxia: As we know, air consists of 79.02% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen and only 0.03% others, most of which is carbon dioxide. Water vapor is up to 5%. With increasing humidity, the amount of nitrogen and oxygen decreases by 1-2%.

Significant reduction in their atmosphere often leads to hypoxia. Even being at a low altitude (about fifteen hundred meters), a person will definitely experience a certain decrease in sensitivity to light. A vivid example of this when going from a bright room to a dark dimly lit subject is considered with difficulty.

The most important pathogenetic factor inherent in explosive decompression is the strong cooling of the pilots' body. Especially it affects the less protected parts of the body: arms, legs, face, as air with a temperature of 56 degrees causes a fairly rapid frostbite.

Explosive decompression aircraft

At the height during the decompression, the crew is completely lost in a matter of seconds. Some sound they can hear, but at that moment death is already coming. No distress signal can be sent to the dispatcher.

When there is a destruction of the tail part of the airliner, there are no chances to survive with passengers, all perish for one moment. Nothing can help, because full inoperability is coming. These are the consequences of the explosive decompression of the aircraft.

If the flight attendant suggests wearing an oxygen mask, you need to do this, since air at high altitudes is very rarefied. And if complete decompression occurs, the lungs will not provide oxygen to the brain due to a heavy load, dizziness, fainting will begin. The people on the plane lose consciousness in about forty seconds.

The main symptoms of explosive decompression

The explosive decompression has eight basic symptoms:

1. As a result of the increase in the volume of air that is in the lungs, the thorax is instantaneously enlarged. Eyewitnesses of decompression compare this phenomenon with a blow to the chest.
2. Filling with intestines and stomach with subsequent swelling - the so-called high altitude flatulence.
3. Severe pain of the accessory nasal cavity and in the ears.
4. Uncontrolled defecation and urination, severe vomiting.
5. Shock emission from the anus of gases, and from the nose - air.
6. Severe pain of the joints and muscles as a consequence of tissue ischemia caused by gas embolism of small vessels - high-altitude pain.
7. In connection with the fact that sharply increasing the separation of sweat, there is a feeling of severe freezing.
8. Within two minutes of the onset of explosive decompression, people begin to have convulsions and a coma.

Barotrauma in explosive decompression

Damage to the organs of the body as a result of the pressure difference between the internal cavities and the external environment is called barotrauma. It occurs when descents descend to a great depth, with takeoffs and landings of aircraft. Everything that happens during explosive decompression is fraught with great dangers, one of which is barotrauma. In explosive decompression, the following organs are subject to barotrauma:

• Hearing aid.
• Light.
• Hollow organs.

When the barotrauma of the hearing aid bursts the eardrum, the auditory ossicles are damaged, a hemorrhage occurs in the ear tissue and the tympanum.

With barotrauma of the lungs in the airways there is liquid blood, lungs, swell up to the limit, focal ruptures with hemorrhages of the lung tissue are noted.

As a result of the increase in the volume of gases in the stomach and intestines, their rupture occurs - these are manifestations of barotrauma of hollow organs.

Causes of death from explosive decompression

Sudden death from explosive decompression, as reported in the literature, comes as a result of shock, tissue emphysema, because of which there is a "ramming affect" of gases. But the hypobarium in this case has nothing to do with the tragedy. Evidence that there is a direct relationship between the tolerability of rapid hypobaria and the size of subcutaneous emphysema has not yet been found.

A major role in the fatal outcome of explosive decompression is undoubtedly due to gas embolism, although it has no decisive significance.

In 1970, the author Luhanin identified the main factor of rapid lethality in hypobaric anoxia.

Preventive measures

Measures to prevent explosive decompression at altitude need to be dealt with very seriously, putting the task of preserving the lives of passengers and flight personnel to the fore.

Main preventive measures:

1. Ensuring airtightness of the aircraft.
2. Organization of rapid air blowing into the cabin during its depressurization.
3. Special clothing pilots must tightly tighten the body.

You should know that wherever and wherever you fly on the plane, there is always the risk of an accident, in which the first place from the threats to life is explosive decompression. It leads to imperceptible, but significant irreversible consequences.