Suffocation

Breathing (or ventilation) is the process of moving air into and out of the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the internal environment, mostly by bringing in oxygen and flushing out carbon dioxide.

All aerobic creatures need oxygen for cellular respiration, which uses the oxygen to break down foods for energy and produces carbon dioxide as a waste product.

Breathing, or “external respiration”, brings air into the lungs where gas exchange takes place in the alveoli through diffusion.

The body’s circulatory system transports these gases to and from the cells, where “cellular respiration” takes place.

The breathing of all vertebrates with lungs consists of repetitive cycles of inhalation and exhalation through a highly branched system of tubes or airways, which lead from the nose to the alveoli. The number of respiratory cycles per minute is the breathing or respiratory rate, and is one of the four primary vital signs of life.

Under normal conditions the breathing depth and rate is automatically, and unconsciously, controlled by several homeostatic mechanisms which keep the partial pressures of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the arterial blood constant.

Keeping the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the arterial blood unchanged under a wide variety of physiological circumstances, contributes significantly to tight control of the pH of the extracellular fluids (ECF).

Over-breathing (hyperventilation) and under-breathing (hypoventilation), which decrease and increase the arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide respectively, cause a rise in the pH of ECF in the first case, and a lowering of the pH in the second. Both cause distressing symptoms.

Breathing has other important functions. It provides a mechanism for speech, laughter and similar expressions of the emotions. It is also used for reflexes such as yawning, coughing and sneezing.

Animals that cannot thermo-regulate by perspiration, because they lack sufficient sweat glands, may lose heat by evaporation through panting.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Common symptoms include fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, and loss of smell. While the majority of cases result in mild symptoms, some progress to viral pneumonia, multi-organ failure, or cytokine storm.

The time from exposure to onset of symptoms is typically around five days but may range from two to fourteen days.

Asphyxia is a condition in which an extreme decrease in the concentration of oxygen in the body accompanied by an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide leads to loss of consciousness or death.

•  Interruption of breathing and consequent anoxia can cause loss of consciousness.

Asphyxia may result from choking, drowning, electric shock, or injury.

•  Loss of consciousness due to the body’s inability to deliver oxygen to its tissues, either by the breathing of air lacking oxygen or by the inability of the blood to carry oxygen.

If you have asthma or have had bronchitis or have had to use an inhaler has some experience with trouble of breathing. If you’ve run and when you stop have to catch your breath you have some idea. If you played a tough game and end up puffing and panting you understand the lost of air.

If you have been to the beach and have been knocked down under water by a wave and another wave and it pushes you to the shore before you can break the surface spitting water and gasping for air. Some might need CPR to resuscitate.

Those fish you hook and pull out of the water desperately twitch and flop about on the deck or pier. They are suffocating.

Doesn’t look like a good way to die.