My mother is a dialysis patient and her tech in a rush to get to lunch pushed air back into my mother's veins. She felt very dizzy and blacked out among other things. What exactly is the danger of air going back into the veins once the treatment is complete?

Wally- I would need more information to accurately reply to your question. A few isolated bubbles do no harm,but a lot of little bubbles can make a big bubble after a while.If indeed your family member got what we call an "air embolus" that would been a big enough amount of air to affect the heart's ability to pump blood. Without being there,I cannot judge what happened.It would be hard to have this actually happen to a harmful degree while a patient treatment is being discontinued because of the air detector safety device which is part of every machine. Could your mother have seen a few bubbles ,been frightened, and thus "faint"? If a person gets a true air embolus it is like a pump on a well or fuel pump on a vehicle that "loses its prime" making the squeezing motion of the heart less effective to move the blood around the body. The tech would have turned the pt on her left side and placed her head lower that her feet,given oxygen,and probably needed transport to a hospital. That is why I say, could your mother have been frightened into faintness? I would hate to think otherwise...Hope all is well now.