this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2025
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Explain Like I'm 5 (ELI5)

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How do oxygen free hazards develop? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 5 months ago by scuppie@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/eli5@lemmy.world
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I've had a couple of articles come up for me like Darwin award winners walking into helium balloons while they're still being filled at ground level, or people walking into buildings (is it far underground?) and just asphyxiating before they realise.

How do these conditions come about? What about cave diving? Where do you get areas open to the environment where oxygen doesn't reach? I get with helium balloons the gas is being forcefully displaced. How else do you encounter oxygen absent scenarios?

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[–] scuppie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 months ago

That game is why I thought of it! I forgot to include in the post, I thought the reason we feel pain when suffocating is our lungs not liking CO2, but some gases like helium you'll just drop dead before you know what's happening?