DCS bubble x-ray pic

[lobbolt]

Found this on a Taiwan diving forum. Some guy retrieving gear lost by a fishing boat got DCS and went to the chamber. This is a x-ray of some bubbles.

[WaterDawg]

Cool!

[yukoneer]

time to get the needles and poke the air out, just like a bubbled sticker!

[knotical]

Any further info about scale of the X-ray or the location in the body? It’s interesting that the bubbles are so round. Does that mean they are in a fluid? I assumed that if the bubbles form in tissue they are deformed by that very same tissue that surrounds them (sausage shaped in smaller blood vessels, any shape within dense tissue, etc.)

[boomx5]

Nice! Can you give further details? If I had to guess, it sounds like he did a quick bounce dive following a previous dive and got whacked.

[Dr Deco]

Hello readers:

I doubt that this is an x-ray image since I have many of these, and they were all made through a microscope. Somebody appears to have incorrectly identified the photo when originally sent out.

Bubbles in capillaries are in actuality sausage shaped. We have a picture in our mind that “bubble” implies “round.” That is not always the case.

Dr Deco

[yukoneer]

what is that oval thing at the center/bottom of the screen (dark black borders, like a upside down U because the photo was cut off)

[Dr Deco]

The fat object is the gas bubble in the blood vessel.

[yukoneer]

thank you for the absolute clarification... could that gas bubble come from a DCS?

[Dr Deco]

It could have, yes. Most likely it was from a lab animal.