What happens if the air enters the vein? How dangerous is this?

Stories about how to inject and inject air during the procedure are common. Some do not even allow themselves to take intravenous injections - they are so afraid. But in fact, what will happen if the air enters the vein? Is it instant death?

Danger of intravenous injection

The danger that intravenous injections carry in themselves is much exaggerated by the inhabitants. It's no secret that before becoming experienced medical workers, students of higher and secondary medical institutions are practicing. And intravenous injections at them it turns out correctly to do or make not at once. If in a situation where air enters a vein, the consequences were fatal, the population would noticeably be thinned out.

In order to create an air embolism, and this is the name of the condition when air enters the bloodstream and leads to a fatal outcome, you need to inject into the vein at least 10 ml of air. Moreover, it is so clever that he immediately penetrated into the large arteries and corked the gaps in the lungs. With an intravenous injection, the limb into which the needle is inserted is horizontal, below the level of the heart, so that the air bubble can not cause deadly damage in any way

Consequently, the answer to the question of what will happen if air gets into a vein when injected, is this: nothing terrible will happen.

In what cases is the ingress of air into the bloodstream dangerous?

We will isolate the factors under which air entering the bloodstream can lead to negative, and sometimes irreversible, consequences:

• Injuries or injuries that occur in the area of large vessels;
• Unsuccessful surgical operations;
• Pathological birth activity.

What will happen if air gets into a vein when injured or injured in the thoracic or neck area? In the thoracic region, the pressure is always lower than the surrounding atmospheric pressure. And the neck area is located above the level of the heart. Air will be sucked under pressure into large vessels and simply rupture the circulatory system. The consequences of such damage are irreversible.

It is also impossible to stop air embolism during incorrect surgical operations or during childbirth. Air in the open blood vessels or in the vena cava of the uterus is absorbed instantaneously when it is cut.

If the vein gets air in the situations described above, doctors predict a fatal outcome.

Dangerous professions

Divers, pilots - all whose occupations are associated with overloads caused by sudden changes in pressure, are at risk of saturation of the circulatory system with air. What will happen if air gets into a vein with a pressure drop, and how does it happen?

The effect of a changing pressure on a person should be slow enough. If the diver rises quickly from a great depth, or the caisson worker is urgently removed from the chamber, the air in the blood vessels literally boils. Formed nitrogen bubbles, which normally exhale, clog the alveoli, entering the small circle of blood circulation. This is how a caisson disease can arise .

Her symptoms are:

• weakness;
• Bleeding from the nose or ears;
• Loss of orientation;
• Impossibility to move.

If a person has time to put in a pressure chamber, then serious consequences can be avoided.

Before answering the question: "What will happen if the air enters the vein?", It is necessary to clarify the circumstances under which this happened. Only then it will be possible to give a reliable answer.