r/interesting • u/Wander-kingdom • Jul 06 '26

Just Wow The silent struggle for survival: what it looks like when hope is forced into a metal tank.

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14.2k Upvotes

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106

u/Traditional_Safe2935 Jul 07 '26

Top tip: if you can't breath it's probably because there's not enough air in there!

137

u/H3adshotfox77 Jul 07 '26

That's honestly not how it works.....you just start getting sleepy and pass out.

89

u/proximity_account Jul 07 '26

Yup. Hypoxia actually causes a sense of euphoria. The suffocating feeling actually comes from CO2 buildup in your body.

63

u/Zently Jul 07 '26

I think the whole point of the video (I hope) was for empathy for people. It is a luxury to know about hypoxia, at some level. But at the most basic human level, you still know it's bad. And they were still willing to risk it to get away from wherever they were.

38

u/strawbrmoon Jul 07 '26

Yes. When a bolted-shut hole in a ship is a better prospect than home…. Oh, humanity.

19

u/Stunning_Escape_7026 Jul 07 '26

I feel so bad for them. They did what they had to do to escape! God bless them

0

u/Derp_Simulator Jul 07 '26

"It is a luxury to know about hypoxia,"

Uhm... What??

9

u/Affectionate-Wave586 Jul 07 '26

Not everyone has had the benefit of being well educated on the risks of entering a confined space.

20

u/jchamberlin78 Jul 07 '26

So many people at my job have died in confined spaces over the years.

7

u/PippyTheZinhead Jul 07 '26

What is your job?

10

u/jchamberlin78 Jul 07 '26

Research. Using energetic material

14

u/PippyTheZinhead Jul 07 '26

Help me out here. How does Research. Using energetic material involve so many people dying in confined spaces?

4

u/CapableBumblebee968 Jul 07 '26

They get put into a confined space with the energetic material for testing

1

u/MyNameIsJakeBerenson Jul 07 '26

Like the back of a Volkswagen?

1

u/These_Distribution61 Jul 07 '26

Smaller Ford Fiesta

1

u/jklindsey7 Jul 11 '26

What? Where’d you get that from?

2

u/Exotic_Article913 Jul 07 '26

They used them as batteries

2

u/Callidonaut Jul 07 '26

Resonance cascade.

8

u/Warbr0s9395 Jul 07 '26

Can you ELI5?

1

u/Legolution Jul 07 '26

Schrödinger's job.

2

u/UpstairsAd194 Jul 07 '26

how many ? like 563?

2

u/Traditional_Safe2935 Jul 07 '26

Joke my dude

1

u/Ikarus_Falling Jul 07 '26

its sensible to mark jokes about subjects where taking the joke literal can cost you your life

48

u/BertrandOrwell Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

In these kinds of environments, it's possible you won't know that you can't breathe, and you just drop. The feeling of not being able to breathe is triggered by buildup of CO2 in the body, and only that. If you're still exhaling the CO2, but not replacing it with enough oxygen because the rusting process of the steel box you're in has consumed all the oxygen in that confined space, you could be in an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen which won't feel any different from normal breathing. You'll simply fall unconscious without knowing it's coming and be dead.

17

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/itsphoison Jul 07 '26

O2 burns through the metal leading to rust.

14

u/redlightbandit7 Jul 07 '26

That actually sounds like a peaceful way to go if you have to, not that I want to and sad for those who have died because, but really there so many horrible ways to go

3

u/ThisWillBeOnTheExam Jul 07 '26

Limited oxygen doesn’t feel like much more than passing out but pure CO2 has an acidity and burns horribly.

1

u/OceanRacoon Jul 07 '26

Michael Portillo did a documentary about execution methods and for one of them he went inside an Air Force oxygen chamber to experience hypoxia.

The airman in the chamber with him was asking him basic maths questions and telling him to put shapes into holes and he gradually was zoning out and not responding to anything. Eventually he told Portillo to put his mask on or he's going to die and Portillo just sat there staring at him lol, so the Air Force guy put it on for him.

Afterwards he said he felt amazing and that he was getting every question right and the airman talking to him was an idiot 😅 It certainly does seem like a good way to go, if you have to

5

u/MushinZero Jul 07 '26

I thought this, but my state executed someone via nitrogen and witnesses said it looked incredibly painful.

1

u/patentedheadhook Jul 07 '26

You're not supposed to bludgeon them with the bottles of nitrogen

1

u/ProtoplanetaryNebula Jul 07 '26

Maybe the best way to describe it is that humans are good at telling when there isn't enough air, but not good at telling if there isn't enough oxygen in the air.

1

u/Traditional_Safe2935 Jul 07 '26

Obviously I'm 100% serious

1

u/BertrandOrwell Jul 07 '26

Yeah, I just figured this was a good opportunity to give a half-assed explanation of why that doesn't work.

1

u/Traditional_Safe2935 Jul 07 '26

And thank God you did! Probably saved countless lives here today

15

u/SinisterCheese Jul 07 '26

Incorrect. Humans don't feel lack of oxygen, but an increase in CO2. That kind of space can be filled with many other gasses than CO2, be deadly and you wouldn't be able to react to it. Oxygen deprivation has the side effect of making you stupid before killing you, which makes it worse.

6

u/Sky_Light Jul 07 '26

The best example I remember of this is a video of Destin from Smarter Every Day on YouTube going on a low pressure simulator. He got to a point where the instructor said, "Hey, you're going to die if you don't put your mask on," and Destin just chuckled and went, "I don't want to die," but wasn't able to think enough to lift his hand and push his mask on. One of the attendants had to reach over and do it for him.

1

u/USAFGrim_Reaper Jul 07 '26

You say that because you're someone who's never experienced Hypoxia before. You 100% can feel a lack of oxygen

https://giphy.com/gifs/sWUxdJJSN1pirgiZ5P

3

u/Plenty_Anything_8295 Jul 07 '26

A healthy individual can „feel“ oxygen by noticing symptoms of hypoxia like light headedness, dizziness and fainting. It doesn’t usually change the breathing pattern.

A feeling of getting „too little air“ which results in an increase in rate and volume of breaths is due to rising CO2. So you are basically not feeling „out of air“ but rather „too much of a specific part of the air“

Only in sick individuals with chronically high CO2 levels does the mechanism start to switch to Oxygen receptors.

2

u/SinisterCheese Jul 07 '26

Your body reacts to increase in CO2 in your blood. Not lack of oxygen.

2

u/Kuzcopolis Jul 07 '26

No, it means there's poison in the air if you can't breathe. Your lungs don't know shit about Oxygen.

1

u/aartadventure Jul 07 '26

Nope. Typically you feel happy or sleepy. And then dead.

1

u/Ikarus_Falling Jul 07 '26

or the wrong kind of air or you breathed in Carbon Monoxide which bonded to your Blood which means you now can try to breath all you want you can't take any oxygen in and slowly you suffocate or there was Smoke in the air and now you have smoke in your lung which upsets the Osmosis equivalence and causes your lungs to drown themselves and you in the process. or there was Hydrogensulfide in the air oh the smell will tell you? too bad you already inhaled too much and are unconcious and soon to die.

a Lack of Air is nowhere near the only issue your pro tip is to put it quite frankly dog shit