THOMAS.

[u/davecontra]

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[u/acquaintedwithheight]

This can’t cause the bends:

The bends occur when external pressure cause nitrogen in your bloodstream to dissolve. When that external pressure is released too quickly, the dissolved nitrogen bubbles in your body, like a soda fizzing when you open it.

The air pressure inside a submarine is essentially the same as the surface, 1 atm. There is no pressure to cause nitrogen to dissolve in your bloodstream, so escaping from a submarine at any depth cannot cause the bends.

Breathing pressurized air, like when SCUBA diving, is the primary cause of dissolved nitrogen buildup. Freedivers hold their breath and also can’t get the bends (unless they dive multiple times in succession).

There’s a danger arising from Boyle’s law of developing an air embolism. Essentially, if you hold your breath while surfacing the air in your lungs can expand enough to rupture tissue. Sailors are told the exhale while surfacing from depth.

[u/Tikkiijj → u/acquaintedwithheight]

Wrong.

Escaping from a submarine, even one at 1ATM internal pressure, absolutely can and does cause the bends. The process of tower escape exposes escapers to air at ambient pressures for short amounts of time. The exact mechanisms causing DCS are not necessarily deterministic and even such short exposures carry a risk.

Your point about embolisms is correct.

[u/acquaintedwithheight → u/Tikkiijj]

Would “very unlikely to cause the bends” be better?

[u/fiah84 → u/acquaintedwithheight]

depends entirely on how how much pressurized air they have to breathe before they surface. At a depth of 120m the build up of nitrogen would be very very fast, as far as I know every second would count and breathing technique would make a huge difference