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Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: Chemistry4me on 14/03/2009 09:35:02

Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 14/03/2009 09:35:02: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns? [:-\]
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 15/03/2009 02:52:48: Alright, seeing as nobody appears to know I might have to do some digging myself. [:)]
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 15/03/2009 02:55:44: Hi Chemistry4me,
That is a good question, why didn't I think of it before? [:)]

Well if you believe this:

Quote
A teaspoon of water into your lungs can kill you.So I would imagine not very much

and this:

Quote
That is hard to say. Water is absorbed rapidly into the blood from the lungs and many drowning victims are dry.It would take less than a cup full anyhow.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090131185836AAoEupo

Apparently it is less than a cup. [:)]
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 15/03/2009 03:02:49: This fella seems to agree with the previous one:

Quote
It doesn’t take much. Less than a cup of water will do the trick.

http://www.fluther.com/disc/9038/how-much-water-does-it-take-to-drown/
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 15/03/2009 03:06:35: Wow!
Thanks for that Chemistry4me. [:)]
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 15/03/2009 03:10:50: You might like to know that you can also drown without any sort of liquid...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_drowning
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Karen W. on 15/03/2009 04:19:50: Wow I would say that is always what I have been told...
By the way you are such a resourceful fellow!
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/03/2009 15:17:31: Well, I don't think they do it often, but if you are careful you can fill a lung with water and not die. The medics call it broncholavage.
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Chemistry4me on 16/03/2009 04:33:01: Broncho... what? [???][???]
I could even find that in the dictionary! [???]
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: John Chapman on 16/03/2009 11:25:35: This drowning-in-a-teaspoon-of-water thing that we always hear of....

I have always assumed that, while it may be possible that a teaspoon full can kill you, it is probably because of choking or asphyxiation. ie someone falls unconscious and lands face-down in a puddle and is somehow suffocated by the water. And so it is called drowning.

Actually, thinking about it, what is drowning? It's not the water that kills you but the lack of oxygen. Surely the victim dies of suffocation which could be caused by any number of things, such as a cushion pressed to the face or a plastic bag over the head. Or water covering the nose and mouth.

In fact, the more I think about it the more I feel that this whole teaspoon thing is an urban myth. The mouth and nose are shaped so that it is not possible to cover them both with such a small quantity of water. I wonder if the story comes from the fact that some drowned people may only have a teaspoon of foreign liquid actually in their lungs which, of course, is not the same as drowning in one teaspoon full.
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Bored chemist on 16/03/2009 21:00:54: Well, I know there's more to life than wiki but their definition is "Drowning is death from suffocation (asphyxia) caused by a liquid entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia and cardiac arrest.[1]"
If a small amount of water clogs up the lungs (and it could by messing up the surfactant preoperties of the liquid layer that is meant to be there) then a small amount of water will drown you. A teaspoonfull seems a bit extreme, but I wouldn't like to rule it out.
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: John Chapman on 16/03/2009 21:12:23: A?

What surfactant layer?
Title: How much water can an average-sized lung hold until the person drowns?
Post by: Bored chemist on 16/03/2009 22:04:15: The surface of the lung is wet, but it's not pure water (of course). There are proteins in it which act to reduce the surface tension, otherwise it would be difficult to re-inflate your lungs after you breathed out.