Caisson disease

SAFETY PROFILE Liquid air can cause dssue damage due to low temperature. Personnel exposed to compressed air may develop caisson disease (the bends, the chokes) if decompression is too rapid. Moderate explosion hazard when containers under pressure are shocked or exposed to heat or flame. Flammable materials, e.g., ethyl ether, hydrocarbons, or charcoal, which have been in contact with liquid air may explode very easily. Ordinary oxidation is greatly accelerated in compressed air. Moderately dangerous disaster hazard can react vigorously with reducing materials. 

The release of nitrogen from solution in the blood, with formation of small bubbles, is the cause of most of the symptoms and changes found in compressed air illness (caisson disease). It is a narcotic at high concentration and high pressure. Both the narcotic effects and the bends are hazards of compressed air atmospheres such as found in underwater diving. Nonflammable gas. Can react violently with lithium, neodymium, titanium under the proper conditions. See also ARGON. 

A management system used to organize the response to a chemical incident. The factors of DECIDE are Detect, Estimate, Choose, Identify, Do the best, and Evaluate. Decompression Sickness (Benfls, Caisson Disease)... 

Mixtures of hehum and oxygen are used as a breathing gas for deep-sea diving. Due to its low density, this mixture streams easily through the lungs. Unhke nitrogen, hehum is not dissolved in the blood plasma, and thus caisson disease (also known as decompression sickness, and the bends) is avoided on ascent. 

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