I would have thought that an air bubble gets popped and we move on. That the gas eventually dissolves and gets passed somehow.
So, what’s going on? Why does the heart stop so violently? It acts like there was an implosion on the inside…
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As everyone here seems to address more as to why and where air emboli can harm you, let me tell you HOW exactly an air embolus gets stuck in a blood vessel and subsequently stops the blood. After reading most of comments here, some might have been left wondering why air emboli don’t just get passed through capillaries. They are made of air which can change shape and volume so what’s the catch? While the blockage is easy to understand when talking about a solid embolus like a blood clot, in case of an air embolus it is a bit more complex. Due to viscosity of blood, the blood flows more quickly in the middle of the vessel. So in a small enough blood vessel compared to the volume of air, the air bubble forms different shapes on each end. Since the end from which the blood is flowing is more round, a pressure difference occurs which acts against the direction of the blood flow like a “parachute” effect. When it gets to a small enough vessel the pressure difference becomes enough to stop the flow, thus making an air embolus lodged in and acting like any other solid embolus.
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