In article ,
RubberBiker writes:

Because of the high velocity of the air from the hand driers, could I
get an embolism through a cut on my hands?

That thought crossed my mind too. Actually you can do it without
any cut if you blast compressed air at your skin -- it will go
through, which is one reason you should never use a compressed
air line to blow debris off your hands.

********.

No way can low pressure air cause an embolism via the hands.

A hypodermic syringe into a blood vessel can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embolism

And *high pressure* airlines can certainly be dangerous (although most
frequently for blowing something like swarf into your eye, or blowing
industrial contaminants/dusts into the air for you to breath - or
through *frequent close contact* with the lubricants in *industrial*
air causing skin problems).

Really high pressures such as diesel injector pumps can go through the
skin, as can certain very large industrial pressure washers.

But hot-air hand dryers are really, really not going to do it.

No one claimed they were.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]