page_title: Air embolism
section_title: Treatment of divers
hierarchical_section_title: Air embolism / Treatment / Treatment of divers
caption_attribution_description: The decompression chamber at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab.
context_page_description: An air embolism, also known as a gas embolism, is a blood vessel blockage caused by one or more bubbles of air or other gas in the circulatory system. Air embolisms may also occur in the xylem of vascular plants, especially when suffering from water stress. Air can be introduced into the circulation during surgical procedures, lung over-expansion injury, decompression, and a few other causes.
  Divers can suffer from arterial gas embolisms as a consequence of lung over-expansion injury. Breathing gas introduced into the venous system of the lungs due to pulmonary barotrauma will not be trapped in the alveolar capillaries, and will consequently be circulated to the rest of the body through the systemic arteries, with a high risk of embolism. Inert gas bubbles arising from decompression are generally formed in the venous side of the systemic circulation, where inert gas concentrations are highest, these bubbles are generally trapped in the capillaries of the lungs where they will usually be eliminated without causing symptoms.
context_section_description: Oxygen first aid treatment is useful for suspected gas embolism casualties or divers who have made fast ascents or missed decompression stops. Most fully closed-circuit rebreathers can deliver sustained high concentrations of oxygen-rich breathing gas and could be used as an alternative to pure open-circuit oxygen resuscitators. However pure oxygen from an oxygen cylinder through a Non-rebreather mask is the optimal way to deliver oxygen to a decompression illness patient.
  Recompression is the most effective, though slow, treatment of gas embolism in divers. Normally this is carried out in a recompression chamber. As pressure increases, the solubility of a gas increases, which reduces bubble size by accelerating absorption of the gas into the surrounding blood and tissues.  Additionally, the volumes of the gas bubbles decrease in inverse proportion to the ambient pressure as described by Boyle's law.  In the hyperbaric chamber the patient may breathe 100% oxygen, at ambient pressures up to a depth equivalent of 18 msw.  Under hyperbaric conditions, oxygen diffuses into the bubbles, displacing the nitrogen from the bubble and into solution in the blood.  Oxygen bubbles are more easily tolerated.  Diffusion of oxygen into the blood and tissues under hyperbaric conditions supports areas of the body which are deprived of blood flow when arteries are blocked by gas bubbles.  This helps to reduce ischemic injury.  The effects of hyperbaric oxygen also counteract the damage that can occur with reperfusion of previously ischemic areas; this damage is mediated by leukocytes (a type of white blood cell).
caption: Decompression chamber
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