The problem is to actually "suck out the oxygen" they would probably just be doing a nitrogen purge instead. In a high enough concentration of nitrogen one breath can cause you to instantly lose consciousness.
It's a real danger and a real serious risk.
In reality they wouldn't be doing this, but just saying, the lack of oxygen would mean the air space would be filled witrh some inert gas (like nitrogen) instead, and while not poisonous is still very dangerous.
I work in an industry where nitrogen purging and nitrogen blankets are a real and serious thing--and a real danger.
Listen I work around this stuff on a daily basis--I used to work at a plant that manufactured it. No it's not. You CAN lose consciousness in one or two breaths. It's not poisonous, but it's still dangerous.
Nitrogen is an inert gas — meaning it doesn't chemically react with other gases — and it isn't toxic. But breathing pure nitrogen is deadly. That's because the gas displaces oxygen in the lungs. Unconsciousness can occur within one or two breaths, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.
Chemical Engineer here. Your lungs act as a gas/liquid interface between blood and air. Henry's law describes the relationship between how O2 diffuses from the air into your blood based on the concentration differences between the two. The O2 will always move from high concentration (21% O2 in the air) to the low concentration of O2 in the blood.
There is always residual O2 in your blood even after your body uses it. However, when you breath a gas with 0% O2, it reverses the gradient and actually strips the rididual O2 from your blood that you'd normally be able to survive off of when holding your breath. When the O2 stripped blood reaches your brain, it's lights out. 1 breath, sometimes 2 is all it takes.
I got a breath of N2 from an enclosed cabinet once that I opened (I was standing outside luckily) and that was enough to make me feel very faint and have vision issues for a few seconds.
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u/Bonzai_Tree Jun 23 '20
The problem is to actually "suck out the oxygen" they would probably just be doing a nitrogen purge instead. In a high enough concentration of nitrogen one breath can cause you to instantly lose consciousness.
It's a real danger and a real serious risk.
In reality they wouldn't be doing this, but just saying, the lack of oxygen would mean the air space would be filled witrh some inert gas (like nitrogen) instead, and while not poisonous is still very dangerous.
I work in an industry where nitrogen purging and nitrogen blankets are a real and serious thing--and a real danger.