one for TMH?

[The Medway Handyman]

That as well.

[ARWadsworth]

Find a photo of a bloke washing his hands after having a piss in a MWay service station and you might be onto something.

Adam

[Steve Firth]

AH right, so if you wantd a medical opinion you would ask someone whose daughter was an ambulance driver it all makes sense now.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I didn't mean to imply air in blood vessels -- I don't know what the damage mechanism is when such air passes through the skin*. I can tell you what it looks like - a really bad bruise, except it took much longer to go than a normal bruise. A collegue at University did it (messing around with a compressed air line in an engineering workshop). The skin surface didn't appear to have been damaged, and the bruise didn't appear immediately -- I think it appeared over next couple of days and was visible on both sides of his hand, and looked quite alarming. Workshop manager knew exactly what it was, I presume from having seen it before. His GP gave him antibiotics as a precaution against any infection which can apparently result. He also got banned from the workshop, except for doing his physics project (he was repairing his bike when the incident happened). We had been warned not to do this during the workshop induction.

*If I was to guess now, I would guess the air got between tissues, with sufficient pressure to tear them, resulting in bleeding seeping back to the rear of the skin, and hence the bruising.

[Steve Firth]

Anyway, getting back to your question the answer is no, there's really no chance of all of getting an embolism in those circumstances. A cut that leaves you able to walk, talk, and wash your hands is going to be a superficial wound in which the largest blood vessel to suffer damage would be a capillary. No only that, but presuming that you are not at the time bleeding like a stuck pig then the capillaries will have been sealed by a clot. Even if you can't see a clot, each individual capillary will have been sealed which is why you stopped bleeding.

Even if you're still bleeding, the chance of getting enough air through a capillary to form an embolus is nil.

Still, if you prefer the opinion of an unqualified salesman based on something that an ambulance driving relative may have told him[1] then I'd go for the information source that you feel happy with. .

[1] Because of course most families sit down together and share information so that each member of the family is equally qualified. Why I bet the subject of air embolus is rarely off the table in the Handyman household.

[Steve Firth]

Ah, righto, yes that isn't an embolus that's simply high pressure injection damage. It's actually quite difficult to do, and from the usual 8bar compressed air source it requires the air gun to be "dead ended" on the skin. It is extremely serious and can lead to amputation as a consequence of the immediate tissue damage or as a consequence of gangrene.

It's odd, I see various anaecdotes about air guns causing embolus, but never a paper in a peer-reviewed journal. There are many papers on high pressure injection damage and that leads me to suspect that the embolus claim is urban myth.

Although this isn't a scholarly article, it's a relatively sane and sober discussion of the issues.

in this medical discussion of the consequences of HPI injuries it is stated that injection of clean air or water usually has no other consequence than immediate mechanical damage but injection of paint, oil and grease can lead to amputation.

no mention of embolism as a consequence of air injection. And one would have to ask why no soldier has died of air embolus after receiving an air injection delivery of vaccine.

[The Medway Handyman]

Not an ambulance driver f****it, they do patient transport. A paramedic. Training level equal to a GP.

[Dave]

After all the posts on this, I understand that now. I originally asked the question because the hand drier was rippling my skin and like lots of others, who have worked with high pressure gasses (80 to 4,000 PSI), I have always been told to be careful when near a stream of it. I have no experience of what pressure and conditions could affect my health.

That last link about high pressures and pin holes was interesting. Once again, when I started to work with high pressure hydaulics, I was told not to put my hands close to any suspected leak, as it could cut me. The pressure used was 270 Bar, about 4,000 PSI.

Lets not bring that up on this ng. Personallities should not come into what sounds like a stupid question. (There is no such thing as a stupid question, by the way.) Look at how this thread has panned out. The group is a source of great knowledge about all sorts of things other than DIY. Let it always be.

Dave

[Mark]

A GP what? don't think the IHCD paramedic award would even get you on the undergraduate course to becoming a ?General Practitioner.

[The Medway Handyman]

Equal to, not the same as. Which is just as well, GP's are all but useless in emergency situations.

The IHCD paramedic award isn't yet aproved anyway. However, two years fastrack course with EMA & Sheffield University, three months intensive training with LAS, starting as an EMT, progressing to EMT 1, then EMT 2, then EMT 3 with yearly intervals between each, tough exams at every stage as well as accessments, then an 8 week residential course, then 4 weeks in theatre.

Then you have 'done your bag' as they say and become one of the 20% of ambulance staff who are actually paramedics not EMT's.

Should you ever be in an emergency situation, you will be much better off with a paramedic than a GP any day.

[Steve Firth]

Ah sorry, "jumped up ambulance driver", better?

Oh please, don't show your woeful lack of ignorance. No paramedic completes a basic degree of five year's duration followed by two years of post graduate foundation training, followed by three years of speciality training examined at all levels before being declared fit to practice.

To make such a claim shows what a gap there is between your understanding and real life.

Not even close to it. I find it risible that Handyman pops up in various newsgroups where I post simply to snipe at me when he is capable of publishing such utter drivel as this.

[john royce]

[Rod]

Depends on the meaning of 'credible', but you could try this:

Surgeons Find Tree Growing Inside Man's Lung

[dennis]

I wouldn't worry TMH doesn't have a clue. Last time he started this argument he claimed that paramedics couldn't do anything useful and were only there to meet arrival time targets for 999 calls. Bets killfile him now before he gets abusive.

[ARWadsworth]

GPs spend all day writing out sick notes for fat lazy bastards and looking at snotty nosed kids. If a GP does see an ill patient then they refer them to a consultant.

Adam

[PeterC]

Very true! My experience with GPs and even first aid isn't good - the 'nurse' (theatre sister) at work was v. good. My last GF - an A&E doctor and FRCS - used to get a lift twixt Southampto and Poole (with bike) in the back of an ambulance if the weather was bad. She said that, in the event of an emergency call, she'd just get out, as she couldn't do much more than the paramedics unless she had hospital equipment.

[PeterC]

They're lousy at diagnosis as well. Actually, an A&E doctor often has to diagnose a lot without any input from the patient (bit like a vet).

[Steve Firth]

Oohhh, an emergency situation? Would that be handled by the application of a first aid solution?

As usual I see that the ranting about paramedics (who learn just enough to deal with a limited number of injuries) is obscuring the fact that the medical training requirement for the father of a paramedic is nil. Which, remarkably enough is also the same as the actual medical knowledge of the father of a paramedic.

And I see that a statement that a doctor can do no more than a paramedic at the scene of an accident is somehow being warped into a doctor can do nothing. Sometimes I really wonder at the ability of the human race to survive into the next decade, let alone the next century.

[Owain]

Especially if they've got a defibrillator in the back of the van, instead of golf clubs.

Owain

[ARWadsworth]

I know what the doctors have to put up with.

I was changing some light fittings at a GPs surgery and I was working near the prescription desk. A gormless looking bloke approached the desk and was asked "What name?". He gave his name but no prescription existed with that name. After 10 minutes of phone calls and questions about which GP he used etc the fool volunteered the information that the prescription was for his girlfriend.

Adam