Originally Posted By: tomloops
Hi: A balloon catheter is used in an angioplasty procedure. A folder balloon is placed on a guide wire and inflated at a location of choice. Could an industrial size balloon catheter be placed in the leaking pipe then inflated to stop the flow of oil? Only a thought...Tom


That is an interesting idea! Keep them coming!

I wonder how the 5000 feet of pressure would affect it. My first thought would be that it would take an incredible amount of air pressure to inflate a balloon at that depth of 5000 feet, and perhaps collapse the balloon, I dunno

Back in the days when I was a scuba diver, I once wanted to see what would happen if I went down to like 60 feet, and tried inflating a balloon, taking the air from my respirator, and blowing into it. Wasn't sure what would happen, would it be really hard to inflate, or would it shoot up like a rocket to the surface? I wanted to try..

But the problem was, when I was discussing this with my dive buddy on the boat, with my little party balloon ready, someone overheard us, and came over, mad as hell, saying that he thought it was a really bad idea, that a sea turtle might find the broken balloon and eat it, was considering reporting me to some sea life protection agency..

so never tried it no

I did do an underwater puppet show, though, hiding behind a reef, with sock puppets! yes

that didn't work so great either, the bubbles coming up behind the puppets kinda gave the gag away spook

Dow