I read somewhere years ago that there is a high chance of dying even after days when inhaling smoke. A friend of my mother’s was in the hospital due to inhaling smoke after their house caught fire. He was in the hospital for a few weeks and he was cleared to go home 4 days ago.
Why is there such a high chance of dying even after days and days of inhaling smoke?
In: Biology
Smoke is really hot, and full of things that you aren’t supposed to breathe in. Inhaling a lot of it means your lungs get damaged, and they aren’t meant to deal with that level of trauma – that’s why we keep them inside us and not outside slung over our shoulder or something.
Over time lungs will heal (which is why your mother’s friend got to leave the hospital at all), but the problem is while the lungs aren’t meant to deal with injury, they ARE supposed to deal with a lot of bacteria and viruses we breathe in. When they are damaged by smoke, they can’t do that as well, and you are prone to getting VERY sick, VERY quickly. When that happens, they want you in the hospital where they can monitor you and act if things happen.
They keep you in the hospital until they are sure your immune system is, if not fully recovered, at least unlikely to leave you in need of emergency medical care.
Aside from the obvious (smoke takes up space where oxygen could be, strangling the person, killing cells, and killing them *immediately*), toxic fumes from the stuff that’s burning (treated wood, plastics, carpet, and chemicals created by the burning process) can also affect a person.
Added to this, [if they have any pre-existing (known or unknown) conditions](https://www.medstarhealth.org/blog/smoke-inhalation-fires-quiet-killer), the lack of oxygen, and the breathing of toxic fumes can hurt people:
>People who have heart failure, arrhythmia, or other forms of heart disease are especially at risk from smoke inhalation. Their lungs are put under greater stress from lack of oxygen, which also strains the heart and could even trigger a heart attack. But even otherwise healthy people can develop heart-related complications from smoke inhalation due to the lack of oxygen being supplied to the body.
The smoke can damage your lungs, causing you to not get enough oxygen, which can lead to a heart attack and death.
I’ve worked in a burn ICU and the answer is simple. Swelling.
Smoke is HOT. Inhaling all that hot smoke causes inflammation of the airway and lungs, aka swelling. People have died days after inhaling smoke because there is so much swelling in the airway that you essentially suffocate the same way someone with a severe asthma attack could.
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