If most people can hold their breath for at least a minute at ground level, why would we lose consciousness within seconds of being exposed to high altidude air pressure?
In: 17
When you hold your breath you still have the air at sea-level pressure in your lung it has oxygen you can use. A normal breath is around 25% of the oxygen in the air, you can use more if you hold you breath.
Gases are not just moving from the air in your lungs to the blood like oxygen do at sea level. CO2 move from the blood to the air. The gas to from a higher to lower concentration.
The result is if the pressure is low enough the concentration starts to be lower in the low-pressure air in the lung and oxygen moves from your blood to it.
So you go unconscious quickly because you do not have the oxygen in the lungs you can absorb and that oxygen leaves your blood and escape into the low-pressure air.
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