Can a human die if submerged in highly oxygenated liquid water and breathe normal?
In: Biology
In general, water just can’t have enough oxygen in it *and* absorb enough CO2 (this is really important) to support an organism that normally breathes air. [Studies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing) (link to wikipedia) use a different liquid, and its only use in humans tends towards very specific medical cases (and some speculative fiction, such as a James Cameron movie from 1989).
edit: removed ‘usually’, because there’s flat out nobody using water in lungs to breath.
Water? Probably would die.
There have been experiments with liquid breathing, using liquid perflourocarbons, which has significantly higher O2 and CO2 holding capacity than water. It’s also easier to pull CO2 out of than water.
PFCs been used both medically (particularly neonatal), and professionally in a number of circumstances using both partial ventilation and full ventilation.
As the others have said, no, water can’t hold enough oxygen.
There are liquids which can do that, though, but your lungs still aren’t equipped to cycle liquids without assistance simply due to how much more effort it takes to get the liquid in and out. You’d need the right liquid as well as a pump of some sort to “breathe normally.”
There were experiments with breathable liquids (not water) but iirc the few people who did it said it felt like suffocating the whole time since, not only do you have to go against your instincts to fill your lungs with liquid, it’s also extremely exhausting to move your diaphragm with that amount of weight. There’s also the problem of getting the stuff out of your lungs afterwards, which is, again, extremely uncomfortable and you risk getting a potentially lethal infection if it hasn’t been done correctly.
So all in all, not practical.
The issue is that the breathable liquids are *very* exhausting to breath because your lungs were not built to move that mass. So it’s only possible for a few minutes.
Not really, the thing is our lung are not suited to breath liquid, AFAIK it ends up damaging them due to the higher density of liquids, it puts too much strain on the lungs.
So does that also mean I can’t keep a brain alive in a jar????
PS not a mad scientist or anything
The amount of dissolved oxygen that water can hold is far too low for a human to survive, even if under high pressure.
In addition liquid ventilation would disrupt and collapse the small air sacs responsible for oxygen exchange.
So no.
This is slightly off topic, but for some reason after reading this post and the comments I felt VERY aware of my breathing and the air felt heavy and dense and my lungs are laboring very hard. It’s kinda freaking me out. It goes away when I stop focusing on it and go back to autopilot breathing but WTF is wrong with me? I mean I’m obese. 250lbs but also 6ft so like regular overweight dad style. Is it my body? Is this normal? Holy shit I’m about to eat right and work out RIGHT NOW. Shits got me fucked up.
James Cameron the crazy bastard did this with a rat in the film the abyss! Like others have mentioned in this thread they used Oxygenated perfluorocarbon. James Cameron has talked about it in interviews.
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