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EpicAura99 t1_j4yumrz wrote

Reply to comment by DanYHKim in TIL CO2 bonds with the moisture in your nose creating carbonic acid. That's why it burns when you burp after drinking a soda. by HosWoodWorks

That, and you can actually tell you’re suffocating. Since your body can’t detect lack of oxygen, only presence of CO2, most any other gas would be a painless drift to sleep.

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DanYHKim t1_j4yv1dn wrote

Yeah. I once read That an inspection team tired of suffocation well looking at one of the fuel tanks for the space shuttle. They were inside the tank, which had been purged with nitrogen. They were unaware that the tank was devoid of oxygen, And so they conducted the inspection for a short while, and then fell unconscious and suffocated.

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Z010011010 t1_j4z8ip5 wrote

I've done inspections and repairs inside fuel tanks that had a nitrogen generating system; We wear a gas detector that constantly monitors stuff like 02 levels, vapor concentrations, ionizing radiation etc. We dont even enter before taking a reading. If 02 gets below 18.5% or above 22% it will start flashing and sounding a (quite loud) alarm. This is worn in addition to all kinds of rules about tank entry: Gotta have a spotter make contact with you every 5 min, gotta have forced air ventilation or SCBA, gotta notify security of the entry operation so they can direct the rescue personnel if something goes wrong, etc.

It's fun work, imo. But yeah, it is actually quite dangerous.

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[deleted] t1_j50lwii wrote

Ah yes confined space entry procedure, really don't miss it lol. The best part was when my boss looked me in the eye before my first time as the entrant and told me "we don't rescue, we recover."

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