Medic1248 t1_j1vt4kz wrote
Reply to comment by Odd-Gear9622 in Everybody talks about having a CO2 detector but never what to do if the alarm goes off. by kymilovechelle
There needs to be something wrong with your body in order for CO2 to have that effect. It’s extremely good at buffering the carbon in your system, between respiratory drives and metabolic drives. You have to be exposed to such incredibly high levels for such a long time to overwhelm that system and even then, if you’re healthy, you just need fresh air and water. Your body will do the rest.
Usually a person with CO2 problems is someone with a problem of discharging it from the body. Respiratory or kidney failure type patients, certain types of cancers, muscular loss, or neurological injury patients. Hell, it’s more common for a lack of CO2 to be a deadly or life altering problem than it is too much because some long term respiratory patients become dependent on high CO2 levels in the body to breathe instead of being dependent on low O2 levels.
Odd-Gear9622 t1_j1xkjqh wrote
I worked with many different gasses for over 30 years as fire suppression/extinguishment agents. When used at proper levels for extinguishment CO2 was considered the most dangerous, once exposed the autonomous systems can have deadly consequences. Granted, most people will never be in a position to be exposed to CO2 at high percentages. My intention was to point out that CO and CO2 are both deadly colourless, odourless gas and should be treated with caution.
Medic1248 t1_j1xl21d wrote
Oh that’s because of a different reason then. We went over that in the military because of the in vehicle fire suppression systems and now to treat injuries from that. Yeah it’s really easy. You prevent them. You aren’t saving someone that gets a lung full of freshly deployed high pressured co2 for gas suppression. Shit. There’s rough ways to die, that’s near the top of my list. It still doesn’t kill you because of overwhelming the bodies natural ph buffers but that’s because doing that takes too long. You inhale a full blast of that stuff and your lungs die in seconds from the mass damage done by the expansion of the gas as well as the pressure change of it. It’s similar to a flash freeze. This becomes toxic to the brain as well and causes bubbles and aneurisms to form.
Odd-Gear9622 t1_j1xr0b6 wrote
In a post discharge environment that hasn't been vented without SCBA, due to the displacement of O2 and high concentration of CO2 first responders have died from CO2 poisoning. I've literally been in thousands of discharges for concentration testing and they can be impressive.
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