I was working with a fresh pig lung today in class. I inflated it with a rubber hose. It was amazing how the lung inflated like a balloon. When the lung was cut, the air leaked out of the hole.
How does such a cut heal?
If both lungs had holes, how could a person breathe? How could they survive?
If only the lungs had holes and not the thoracic cavity itself (such as broken rib puncturing a lung) where would the air leaking out go. Could the person survive?
Google “pneumothorax” and also add the modifiers “tension” and “spontaneous” and “traumatic”
With great difficulty, even with modern medicine. The lung essentially has to be immobilized as best as possible. Air leaking into the pleural cavity has to be evacuated (the valve that Mark Wahlberg’s character has in his chest in the film Three Kings is just for this purpose) lest the excess air pressure force the lung to collapse. If the puncture large enough to interfere with sustained lung structure an inflammatory drug is used to give the lung wall more bulk. In dire cases, the chest cavity is opened and the lung is surgically stitched, stapled, or glued back together, which is even more painful than it sounds.
With even greater difficulty. The only effective first aid for this is to flow pure oxygen and hope that the capillary flux through the collapsed lung is enough to sustain life.
See above. I would guess catastrophic collapse of both lungs would be unsurvivable outside of a modern intensive care unit.
Stranger
A tension pneumothorax, also called a sucking chest wound, is a case in which the chest wall and lung have been injured, causing a communication between the outside air and the potential space between the lung and chest wall. With each breath, air is sucked into the space, leaving less and less space for the lung to expand. eventually, the chest fills with air and both lungs collapse.
This is the most dire emergency. If not treated, the person will die within a matter of minutes. It can be treated, however, by covering the opening in the chest wall with an occlusive dressing and using a large bore needle drawing out the air.
Other types of pneumothoraces, while still medical emergencies, are not as dire. Some are caused by other medical procedures, such as any kind of chest surgery. Some are spontaneous, some are from non-piercing injury, like broken ribs.
All types are treated with chest tubes. The lungs aren’t immobilized, as Stranger On A Train suggests. The chest tube is in place for one or more days, until the lung heals. The patient gets out of bed, coughs and deep breathes to facilitate re-expansion
Stranger On A Train, you may be thinking of a flail chest, which does require controlling all respiration with paralyzation, intubation and ventilation. A flail chest is a case in which 3 or more ribs lying contiguously are broken, making the rise and fall of the chest paradoxycal.
I’ll defer to your superior experience.
Stranger