#5 The dummies are doing it wrong. Nitrogen gas is quite lethal if you get a big enough concentration, and hold your breath before inhaling. Clunk, and you're out. There is a nerve that gives us pain when we are get more than tolerable levels of CO2 in our blood, but nitrogen does not activate it until it is too late.
What happens far too frequently is that there is some big storage tank full of nitrogen gas, and someone climbs down a ladder to pull maintenance in it. As they step off the last rung, they pass out and collapse. Someone sees them fall and assumes they have had a heart attack, so climbs down there after them. etc. Usually it is three or four bodies before someone actually *thinks* about it, and realizes there is gas down there.
The same thing also happens in old cesspits full of methane.
Even high concentrations of CO2 can nail you. David Letterman wanted to do a stunt where he was lowered into a tank full of water while wearing a suit covered in Alka-Seltzers. They decided to test it before the show, and as soon as the stand in was lowered into the tank, he passed out. They were barely able to save his life.
So when Letterman did it, he was wearing oxygen tanks and a scuba mouthpiece. And they were right, it did look neat. |