Medicine: Pressure & the Lungs

Flying weather was bad, but the young ex-sailor was enjoying the ride. His oxygen mask seemed to give him no trouble at all. But at 16,000 feet, he suddenly began to sweat and turned blue in the face. Rushed back to the field and thence to a hospital, he died within 28 hours.

The victim had not told the airline that he had been in a tubercular clinic and under treatment by pneumothorax (collapsed lung). His death was due to a simple law of physics: as atmospheric pressure decreased, the air in his chest cavity expanded to a volume that swiftly caused fatal complications.

Reporting the case in the Journal of Aviation Medicine, Dr. Kenneth E. Dowd drew a moral for all such patients: stay on the ground; but if you must fly, stay below 5,000 feet.