How does an air bubble in your veins kill you when your blood is carrying bubbles of oxygen all the time?

Question

You see it in the movies, that a person who is injected with an air bubble dies but how is that. How long does it take and what exactly does the air bubble do?

Answer 1

Oxygen is not carried as bubbles. Its dissolved in the blood.

The bubble.. if it some poison probably like cfc, gaseous,cyanide

Answer 2

The oxygen is in solution in the blood not in a gas form so there are no bubbles in the blood.the  .The bubble in the vein will cause the heart to miss a beat.

Answer 3

I think that once the air bubble reaches the heart, the heart cannot process it, and you have a heart attack.

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Answer 4

i think the thing is the blood carries dissolved oxygen but an air bubble obstructs the blood flow to  heart as the veins carry blood to the heart.

Answer 5

1. Your blood isn't carrying bubbles of oxygen, it carries individual oxygen molecules with hemoglobin.

2.An air bubble will travel through your circulatory system until it lodges in your capillaries or small arteries, becoming what is known as an embolus, preventing blood from passing through. *If* the vessel that the air bubble blocks provides oxygen to an important part of your body, such as your brain or heart, then you *might* have a small chance of dieing. It's based on pure chance, you have no way of knowing where the bubble will lodge into, so it's not really an efficient way of killing people. If the bubble doesn't end up killing you, it will eventually get re-absorbed into your blood.

Answer 6

YOUR BLOOD IS NOT CARRYING BUBBLES OF OXYGEN!

Oxygen combines with haemoglobin in your red blood cells and is carried arround combined with the haemoglobin. In the blood the oxygen is teeny tiny little molecules. An air bubble is made up of lots and lots of these oxygen molecules.

Bubbles I'm a assuming will block your capplillaries and stop blood getting through --> hence if it is in your wrist, your hand might go blue. If the bubble is so big that it is blocking a vein or an artery, then whole limbs, organs may be affected and not enough oxygen to for example the brain will result in seizures/ sudden death. The bubble might move about and when it reaches the heart, it will stop it pumping properly, and when/ if it reaches the brain --> seizure/ death.

Answer 7

Your blood isn't carrying bubbles of oxygen - its carrying individual oxygen molecules on haemoglobin on red blood cells.

And im not sure about the actual injecte air - but i think its when it reaches the brain that it affects you.